Systems and methods of revalidating cached objects in parallel with request for object

ABSTRACT

The present solution provides a variety of techniques for accelerating and optimizing network traffic, such as HTTP based network traffic. The solution described herein provides techniques in the areas of proxy caching, protocol acceleration, domain name resolution acceleration as well as compression improvements. In some cases, the present solution provides various prefetching and/or prefreshening techniques to improve intermediary or proxy caching, such as HTTP proxy caching. In other cases, the present solution provides techniques for accelerating a protocol by improving the efficiency of obtaining and servicing data from an originating server to server to clients. In another cases, the present solution accelerates domain name resolution more quickly. As every HTTP access starts with a URL that includes a hostname that must be resolved via domain name resolution into an IP address, the present solution helps accelerate HTTP access. In some cases, the present solution improves compression techniques by prefetching non-cacheable and cacheable content to use for compressing network traffic, such as HTTP. The acceleration and optimization techniques described herein may be deployed on the client as a client agent or as part of a browser, as well as on any type and form of intermediary device, such as an appliance, proxying device or any type of interception caching and/or proxying device.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to data communication networks.In particular, the present invention relates to systems and methods forrevalidating cached objects in parallel with requests for the objects.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Business entities continue to distribute geographically theiroperations. However, at the same time, many business entities desire toconsolidate their computing infrastructure to a single geographiclocation in order to simplify maintenance and administration. Thesecompeting efforts often require that a remote business operationcommunicate with a centralized data center over a wide area network(WAN). Delays associated with communication over a WAN typically resultsin a user experience that is not satisfying to the user. Thereforetechniques for accelerating the network traffic over the WAN are oftenemployed.

One such acceleration technique is disk-based traffic caching, i.e.,maintaining a history of previously-transmitted network traffic on diskin order to identify and send in place of the network traffic a tag orother identifier over the WAN. However, traditional disk-based cachingtechniques typically fail to provide acceptable performance becausecache index entries, which are stored in memory, tend to scale with thenumber of cache entries, meaning that traditional disk-based cachesconsume large amounts of memory. In some cases, the size of the diskcache is artificially constrained because there is not enough memory toproperly index the cache.

Another acceleration technique is traffic caching, i.e., maintaining ahistory of previously-transmitted network traffic in order to identifyand send in place of the network traffic a tag or other identifier overthe WAN. Such caches generally associate a “freshness” value with eachcached entry. If a requested object is stored in the cache, and itsfreshness value indicates that the cached object is still valid, theobject is sent to the client. However, this approach generally suffersfrom a drawback that the freshness value may not accurately reflectwhether the object has changed. Therefore, reliance on freshness valuescan result in the cache transmitting outdated information to a user,perhaps many times, before the freshness value expires.

Another such acceleration technique is traffic caching, i.e.,maintaining a history of previously-transmitted network traffic on diskin order to identify and send in place of the network traffic a tag orother identifier over the WAN. This approach, however, requiresconstruction of a compression history in order to function well and suchconstruction may require that many different files and objects arerequested before providing a user with any perception of acceleration.

These caches generally associate a “freshness” value with each cachedentry. If a requested object is stored in the cache, and its freshnessvalue indicates that the cached object is still valid, the object issent to the client. However, this approach generally suffers from adrawback that many web objects are delivered without an associatedfreshness value. In these cases a browser application or cache typicallyassigns a freshness value to the object and, in most cases, thefreshness value is selected according to a rule that does not vary withthe type of object encountered. This approach is not optimal since itcan result both in the provision of stale objects as well as thevalidation or freshening of cached objects that are not stale.

If a requested object is stored in the cache, and its freshness valueindicates that the cached object is still valid, the object is sent tothe client. However, this approach generally suffers from a drawbackthat the freshness value may not accurately reflect whether the objecthas changed. Therefore, reliance on freshness values can result in thecache transmitting outdated information to a user, perhaps many times,before the freshness value expires.

In some cases, proxy servers providing cache memories may be deployed inan attempt to ameliorate the delays encountered by WAN traffic, i.e., aproxy server may be able to respond to a user request with data storedin a cache, rather than requiring the user to retrieve the requestedfile or object from the data center. However, proxy servers pose asecurity risk for businesses because they typically do not require userauthentication. Therefore, a proxy server may incorrectly respond to arequest from a user that does not have authority to retrieve aparticular file or object, compromising data security.

One technique that may be used is prefetching, i.e., identifying a fileor object that is likely to be requested by a user and requesting thatfile or object before it is actually requested. However, this techniqueusually does not increase performance as much as might be expectedbecause the prefetching traffic competes with actual requests for filesand objects. That contention slows down actual requests and can actuallyexacerbate the delays perceived by users.

In some cases, the “freshness” of an object is validated before it istransmitted to the client. For example, a conditional HTTP GET commandmay be issued to determine if a requested object is still valid.However, validating an object takes almost as long as fetching it and,therefore, encountering a series of stale objects results in poorperformance because the validation happens while the user is waiting.

Each request sent by a user begins with resolving a Uniform ResourceLocator (URL) to an IP address. In some cases this resolution may takemore than a second to complete, which appears to the user as a delay.Acceleration of DNS resolution would result in a better user experience.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present solution provides a variety of techniques for acceleratingand optimizing network traffic, such as HTTP based network traffic. Thesolution described herein provides techniques in the areas of proxycaching, protocol acceleration, domain name resolution acceleration aswell as compression improvements. In some cases, the present solutionprovides various prefetching and/or prefreshening techniques to improveintermediary or proxy caching, such as HTTP proxy caching. In othercases, the present solution provides techniques for accelerating aprotocol by improving the efficiency of obtaining and servicing datafrom an originating server to server to clients. In another cases, thepresent solution accelerates domain name resolution more quickly. Asevery HTTP access starts with a URL that includes a hostname that mustbe resolved via domain name resolution into an IP address, the presentsolution helps accelerate HTTP access. In some cases, the presentsolution improves compression techniques by prefetching non-cacheableand cacheable content to use for compressing network traffic, such asHTTP. The acceleration and optimization techniques described herein maybe deployed on the client as a client agent or as part of a browser, aswell as on any type and form of intermediary device, such as anappliance, proxying device or any type of interception caching and/orproxying device.

With the techniques described herein, the caching features of thepresent solution works on both accelerated and non-acceleratedconnections. For example, the present solution may deployed as adouble-ended solution in which cooperating intermediaries or deviceswork together to accelerate network traffic, such as one device on aclient-side of a WAN connection, e.g., at a branch office, and a seconddevice on a server-side of the WAN connection, such as a corporate datacenter. The present solution may also be deployed as a single-endedsolution, such as on a client-side connection to WAN to acceleratenetwork traffic. As most users connection to both the Internet and to aWAN, the caching techniques of the present solution may accelerate theuser experience in a single device mode.

The caching techniques of the present solution accelerate protocols suchas HTTP or Common Internet File System (CIFS) which tend to perform acertain minimum number of round-trips per object regardless of size. Byserving data locally from a caching intermediary, the intermediary turnsWAN round-trips into LAN-round trips to reduce latency. The cachingtechniques described herein further help reduce the latency andround-trips times for these objects and improve the user experience.

The techniques of the present solution also reduce the load on theserver. In responding to client requests, the intermediary cache may notcommunicate with the originating server and serve a response from thecache. In other cases, the techniques of the present solution moreefficiently communicate with the server to determine if an object shouldbe obtained from the server. This also reduces the load on the server.

By providing improvements to caching to increase the cache hits orotherwise reduce cache misses, the present solution also increases thelifetime of compression history. For example, if the caching device ison the LAN side of the system only cache misses and validation requestsare sent over the WAN. By reducing the total amount of data goingthrough the compressing device, the lifetime of the compression historyis increased.

In one aspect, the present invention relates to a method of storingobjects in a cache using multiple storage tiers based on size of objectsand maintaining a number of smaller objects stored to the cache within apredetermined threshold. In one embodiment, the method includesestablishing a size of a storage for a cache to store cached objects,where the cache uses a first portion of the storage for storing objectssmaller than or equal to a first threshold object size and a secondportion of the storage for storing objects larger than the firstthreshold object size. The method also includes identifying a number ofobjects the cache is allowed to store to the first portion of thestorage. The cache may receive an object for caching, and determines tostore the object in either the first portion of the storage or thesecond portion of the storage based on a size of the object. The cachealso maintains the number of objects the cache is allowed to store tothe first portion of the storage below a predetermined threshold.

In one embodiment, the method includes the caching determining the sizeof the object is smaller than or equal to the first threshold objectsize and storing the object in the first portion of the storage. Inother embodiments, the cache determines the size of the object is largerthan the first threshold object size and storing the object in thesecond portion of the storage. In some other embodiments, the methodincludes determining by the cache the number of objects stored to thefirst portion of the storage has reached the predetermined threshold. Insome embodiments, the cache may not store the received object in thecache based on the determination that the number of objects stored tothe first portion of the storage has reached the predeterminedthreshold. In some other embodiments, the method includes removing bythe cache a previously cached object from the cache based on thedetermination that the number of objects stored to the first portion ofthe storage has reached the predetermined threshold, and storing thereceived object in the cache.

In another embodiment, a predetermined size of the second portion ofstorage is established for storing objects by the cache larger than thefirst threshold object size. In some embodiments, the cache may identifya second threshold object size for storing objects in the first portionof the storage. In still another embodiment, the cache receives a secondobject for caching, and stores the second object in the first portion ofthe storage responsive to determining a size of the second object isgreater than the second threshold object size and less than the firstthreshold object size. In some embodiments, the cache receives a secondobject for caching, and does not store the second object to the cacheresponsive to determining a size of the second object is less than thesecond threshold object size. In some other embodiments, a size ofmemory used by the cache for indexing objects stored to the storage ofthe cache is established. In still other embodiments, the cachemaintains the size of memory for indexing objects responsive to a changein the size of the storage used by the cache.

In another aspect, the present invention relates to a method of storingobjects in a cache using multiple storage tiers based on size of objectsand storing objects larger than an object threshold size to a portion ofstorage used by the cache. In one embodiment, the method includesestablishing a predetermined size for a first portion of storage used bya cache for storing objects larger than a first threshold object size,the cache storing objects smaller than the first threshold object sizeto a remaining portion of storage used by the cache. The method alsoincludes receiving by the cache an object for caching. The cachedetermines a size of the object is greater than a first threshold objectsize, and stores the object in the first portion of storage responsiveto the determination.

In another embodiment, the caching device may maintain a number ofobjects the cache is allowed to store to the remaining portion of thestorage below a predetermined threshold. In other embodiments, themethod includes determining the number of objects stored to theremaining portion of the storage has reached the predetermined thresholdand not storing a second received object smaller than the firstthreshold object size to the remaining portion of the storage. In someembodiments, the caching device receives a second object, and determinesa size of the second object is less than the first threshold objectsize. In some embodiments, the cache stores the second object to theremaining portion of storage used by the cache if space is available tostore the second object. In other embodiments, the caching devicedetermines the remaining portion of storage used by the cache does nothave space available to store the second object. In still otherembodiments, the cache may not store the second object to the cache. Instill some other embodiments, the cache removes a previously cachedobject from the remaining portion of storage used by cache and storesthe second object in the remaining portion of storage.

In still another embodiment, a second predetermined size for theremaining portion of the storage used by the cache is established tostore objects smaller than the first threshold object size. In someother embodiments, the cache determines the available space of firstportion of storage used by the cache is either at or near thepredetermined size, and increasing the predetermined size of the firstportion of storage by allocating space from the remaining portion ofstorage to the first portion of storage. In some embodiments, the methodincludes establishing a size of memory used by a cache for holdingindexes to objects stored to a storage. In other embodiments, the methodincludes maintaining the size of memory used by the cache for indexingobjects responsive to a change in the size of the first portion ofstorage used by the cache.

In one aspect, the present invention relates to a method of managing asize of objects stored in a cache using multiple storage tiers based onsize of objects, the method allocating a portion of storage used by thecache for storing larger objects. In one embodiment, the method includesestablishing a size of memory used by a cache for holding indexes toobjects stored to a storage, the storage having a storage size. Themethod also includes establishing a first predetermined size of a firstportion of a storage of a cache for storing objects larger than a firstthreshold object size, the cache using a second portion of the storageof the cache to store objects smaller than the first threshold objectsize. The method also includes changing either the size of memory or thestorage size used by the cache. The cache may maintain the firstpredetermined size of the first portion of the storage of the cache inresponse to changing either the size of memory or the storage size usedby the cache.

In another embodiment, the method includes increasing or decreasing thestorage size used by the cache for storing objects. In otherembodiments, the size of the memory used by the cache for indexingobjects is increased or decreased. In some embodiments, the methodincludes identifying a number of objects the cache is allowed to storeto the first portion of the storage. In some other embodiments, themethod includes maintaining the number of objects the cache is allowedto store to the first portion of the storage in response to changingeither the size of memory or the storage size used by the cache.

In still another embodiment, the method includes adjusting the firstthreshold object size in response to changing either the size of memoryor the storage size used by the cache. In some embodiments, the methodincludes adjusting a number of objects the cache is allowed to store tothe second portion of the storage while maintaining the firstpredetermined size of the first portion of the storage. In otherembodiments, the method includes adjusting the number of objects thecache is allowed to store to the first portion of the storage inresponse to changing either the size of the memory or the storage sizeused by the cache. In still other embodiments, the method includesadjusting the number of objects the cache is allowed to store to thesecond portion of the disk relative to an amount of change to either thesize of the memory or the storage size used by the cache.

In another embodiment, the method includes establishing a secondthreshold object size for objects the cache is allowed to store to thesecond portion of the storage, the second threshold object size smallerthan the first threshold object size. In some embodiments, the cacheincludes a third portion of the storage established for storing objectssmaller than the second threshold object size. In some otherembodiments, the method includes adjusting the second threshold objectsize in response to changing either the size of memory or the storagesize used by the cache.

In one aspect, the present invention relates to a method of providingsecurity or reliability to serving cached objects for a sessioncommunicated via a transport layer connection between a client and aserver. In one embodiment, the method includes the following steps:receiving, by a device, a request for an object via a sessioncommunicated over a transport layer connection between a client to aserver; determining, by the device, the object is stored in a cache;forwarding, by the device, the request to the server; deferring, by thedevice, serving the object from the cache until receiving a responsefrom the server; and determining, by the device, to serve the objectfrom the cache based on the response received from the server.

In one embodiment, the method includes determining, by the device, fromthe received response that the server would provide the object to theclient. In some embodiments, the method also includes determining, bythe device, from the received response that the server authorizes one ofthe client or user of the client to receive the object. In otherembodiments, the method includes determining, by the device, from thereceived response that the server is one of available or able to servethe object to the client. In still other embodiments, the methodincludes determining, by the device, the server is transmitting theobject to the client.

In another embodiment, the method includes deferring, by the device,serving the object from the cache until determining the server hastransferred the object to the client at least once. In some embodiments,the device determines, from the received response, that the server wouldnot provide the object to the client, and in response to thedetermination, not serving the object from the cache. In someembodiments, the device determines, from the received response, that theserver does not authorize one of the client or user of the client toreceive the object, and in response to the determination, not servingthe object from the cache. In other embodiments, the device determinesfrom the received response that the server requires authentication ofone of a user of the client, and in response to the determination, notserving the object from the cache. In some embodiments, the devicedetermines from the received response that the server is one of notavailable or not able to provide the object to the client, and inresponse to the determination, not serving the object from the cache. Inother embodiments, the device is a client or an appliance.

In one aspect, the present invention relates to an appliance forproviding security or reliability to serving cached objects for asession communicated via a transport layer connection between a clientand a server. In one embodiment, the appliance includes a means forreceiving a request for an object via a session communicated over atransport layer connection between a client and a server. The appliancealso includes a means for determining the object is stored in a cache.The appliance also includes a means for forwarding the request to theserver. The appliance further includes a means for deferring serving theobject from the cache until receiving a response from the server. Theappliance also includes a means for determining to serve the object fromthe cache based on the response received from the server. In someembodiments, the appliance determines from the received response thatthe server would provide the object to the client. In other embodiments,the appliance determines from the received response that the serverauthorizes one of the client or user of the client to receive theobject.

In one embodiment, the appliance determines from the received responsethat the server is either available or able to serve the object to theclient. In some embodiments, the appliance determines the server istransmitting the object to the client. In other embodiments, theappliance defers serving the object from the cache until determining theserver has transferred the object to the client at least once. In someother embodiments, the appliance determines from the received responsethat the server would not provide the object to the client, and inresponse to the determination, not serving the object from the cache. Insome embodiments, the appliance determines from the received responsethat the server does not authorize either the client or user of theclient to receive the object, and in response to the determination, notserving the object from the cache. In some embodiments, the appliancedetermines from the received response that the server requiresauthentication of either a client or a user of the client, and inresponse to the determination, not serving the object from the cache.

In another embodiment, the appliance determines from the receivedresponse that the server is either not available or not able to providethe object to the client, and in response to the determination, notserving the object from the cache. In some embodiments, the appliance isa proxy transparent to the client and the server.

In one aspect, the present invention relates to a second method ofproviding security or reliability to proxying a connection between aclient and a server. In one embodiment, the second method includes thefollowing steps: forwarding, by a device, to a server a transport layerconnection request received from a client; deferring, by the device,acceptance of the transport layer connection as a connection to proxyuntil receiving a response from the server to the transport layerconnection request of the client; identifying, by the device, from theresponse of the server that the server accepts the transport layerconnection; and determining, by the device, to proxy the transport layerconnection in response to identifying the server's acceptance of thetransport layer connection.

In one embodiment, the method includes receiving by the device a SYNpacket of the transport control protocol connection request of theclient, and forwards the intercepted SYN packet to the server. In otherembodiments, the method includes receiving a SYN-ACK packet as theresponse from the server to the client's transport control protocolconnection request. In some other embodiments, the device is constructedto perform one or more acceleration techniques on the transport layerconnection. In some embodiments, the device performs an accelerationtechnique on the transport layer connection in response to thedetermination.

In another embodiment, the device identifies that the server does notaccept the transport layer connection request, and determines to notaccept the transport layer connection as a connection to proxy. In someembodiments, the device identifies that the server is either unavailableor unable to establish the transport layer connection, and the appliancedetermines to not proxy the transport layer connection. In someembodiments, the device defers acceptance of the transport layerconnection until the device receives an indication that the server iseither available or able to establish the transport layer connection. Inother embodiments, the device identifies if the server does notauthorize the client to establish a transport layer connection with theserver, and in response, the appliance determines to not accept thetransport layer connection as a connection to proxy. In someembodiments, the device identifies the server requires authentication toestablish a transport layer connection with the server, and in response,the appliance defers accepting the transport layer connection as aconnection to proxy until receiving an indication from the server a userof the client is authenticated.

In another embodiment, the device defers proxying the transport layerconnection between the client and server until the server successfullytransfers an object to the client. In some embodiments, the devicecomprises a proxy transparent to the client and the server. In otherembodiments, the device is either the client or an appliance.

In one aspect, the present invention relates to an appliance providingsecurity or reliability to proxying a connection between a client and aserver. In one embodiment, the appliance includes a means for forwardingto a server a transport layer connection request received from a client.The appliance also includes a means for deferring acceptance of thetransport layer connection as a connection to proxy until receiving aresponse from the server to the transport layer connection request ofthe client. The appliance also includes a means for identifying from theresponse of the server that the server accepts the transport layerconnection. The appliance further includes a means for determining toproxy the transport layer connection in response to identifying theserver's acceptance of the transport layer connection.

In one embodiment, the appliance receives a SYN packet of the transportcontrol protocol connection request of the client, and forwarding theintercepted SYN packet to the server. In other embodiments, theappliance receives a SYN-ACK packet as the response from the server tothe client's transport control protocol connection request.

In another embodiment, the appliance is constructed to perform one ormore acceleration techniques on the transport layer connection. In someembodiments, the appliance performs an acceleration technique on thetransport layer connection in response to the determination.

In a further embodiment, the appliance identifies the server does notaccept the transport layer connection request, and determining, by theappliance, to not accept the transport layer connection as a connectionto proxy. In other embodiments, the appliance identifies the server isone of unavailable or unable to establish the transport layerconnection, and determining, by the appliance, to not proxy thetransport layer connection. In some other embodiments, the appliancedefers acceptances of the transport layer connection with the client asa connection to proxy until receiving an indication that the server isone of available or able to establish the transport layer connection. Insome embodiments, the appliance identifies that the server does notauthorize the client to establish a transport layer connection with theserver, and determining, by the appliance, to not accept the transportlayer connection as a connection to proxy. In other embodiments, theappliance identifies that the server requires authentication toestablish a transport layer connection with the server, and deferring,by the appliance, accepting the transport layer connection as aconnection to proxy until receiving an indication from the server a userof the client is authenticated. In some other embodiments, the appliancedefers proxying the transport layer connection between the client andserver until the server successfully transfers an object to the client.

In one aspect, the present invention relates to a method forrevalidating an object stored in cache while serving the object to arequester. In one embodiment, a request for an object is received from arequester. The method also includes determining that the object existsin a cache. The method includes transmitting to the requestor inresponse to the request. The method includes transmitting to a remoteobject server to determine a status of the object in response to thedetermination. In one embodiment, the cached object is transmitted tothe request and a request is transmitted to the object serversubstantially simultaneously. In other embodiments, the cached object istransmitted to the request and a request is transmitted to the objectserve occur in parallel. In still other embodiments, a request istransmitted to the object server prior to transmitting the cached objectto the requester.

In another embodiment, the method includes transmitting the cachedobject to the requester prior to receiving a response from the remoteobject server. In some embodiments, the method includes transmitting toa remote object server, responsive to the determination, a conditionalrequest to retrieve the object. In other embodiments, the methodincludes receiving a response to the conditional request indicating theobject has not changed. In some other embodiments, the method includesreceiving an updated version of the object from the remote object serverin response to the conditional request. In some embodiments, the methodincludes storing the updated version of the object in the local cache.

In still another embodiment, the method includes receiving a request foran object from a requester. In some embodiments, the method includesdetermining (i) that the object exists in the local cache and (ii) thata status identifier associated with the object indicates that the objectis valid. In other embodiments, the method includes transmitting via anetwork, responsive to the determination, the requested object from thecache to the requester. In some other embodiments, the method includes astep of transmitting to the remote object server a request to retrievean updated version of the object in response to the determination.

In another aspect, the present invention relates to a system forrevalidating an object stored in cache while serving the object to arequester. In one embodiment, the system includes a cache manager incommunication with a requester, a remote object server and a local cachestoring an object, the cache manager receiving a first request for theobject from the requester. In response to locating the object in thelocal cache, the cache manager transmits the object to the requester inresponse to the first request, and in response to locating the object inthe local cache, transmits a second request to obtain a status of theobject from the remote object server.

In one embodiment, the cache manager is either software or hardware. Insome embodiments, the local cache is either random access memory or diskstorage. In some other embodiments, the remote object server is a webserver.

In another embodiment, the cache manager communicates with the requestervia a network. In some embodiments, the cache manager transmits theobject to requestor and transmits the second request to the remoteobject server substantially simultaneously. In other embodiments, thecache manager transmits the object to requestor and transmits the secondrequest to the remote object server in parallel. In still otherembodiments, the cache manager transmits the cached object to therequestor prior to receiving a response from the remote object server.

In still another embodiment, the cache manager transmits to the remoteobject server, in response to the determination, a conditional requestto retrieve the object. In some embodiments, the cache manager receivesa response to the conditional request indicating the object has notchanged. In some other embodiments, the cache manager receives anupdated version of the object from the remote object server in responseto the conditional request. In some embodiments, the cache managerstores the updated version of the object in the local cache.

In another aspect, the present invention relates to a method forrevalidation objects cached by the appliance while also serving theobjects to the client in a networked environment including a networkappliance acting as a proxy between a client requesting objects and anobject server responding to client requests. In one embodiment, anappliance intercepts a request from a client for an object from a remoteobject server. The appliance determines that the object exists in acache of the appliance. The appliance transmits, in response to thedetermination, the cached object to the client in response to therequest. The appliance transmits, in response to the determination, arequest to obtain a status of the object from the remote object server.In one embodiment, the appliance comprises a transparent proxy.

In one embodiment, the appliance transmits the cached object to theclient substantially simultaneously to transmitting the request to theobject server. In other embodiments, the appliance transmits the cachedobject to the client in parallel to transmitting the request to theobject server. In still other embodiments, the appliance transmits therequest to the object server prior to transmitting the cached object tothe client.

In another embodiment, the appliance transmits the cached object to theclient prior to receiving a response from the remote object server. Insome embodiments, the method includes transmitting, by the appliance, aremote object server, responsive to the determination, a conditionalrequest to retrieve the object.

In still another embodiment, the appliance receives a response to theconditional request indicating the object has not changed. In some otherembodiments, the appliance receives an updated version of the object. Insome embodiments, the appliance stores the updated version of the objectin the cache. In some embodiments, the method includes determining, bythe appliance, (i) that the object exists in a local cache element and(ii) that a status identifier associated with the object indicates thatthe object is valid.

In still another aspect, the present invention relates to an appliancerevalidating objects cached by the appliance while also serving theobjects to the client in a networked environment including a networkappliance acting as a proxy between a client requesting objects and anobject server responding to client requests. In one embodiment, theappliance includes a packet processing engine intercepting a firstrequest from a client for an object from a server. The appliance alsoincludes a cache manager in communication with the packet processingengine, the cache manager determining whether the object is stored in acache of the appliance responsive to the packet processing engine. Theappliance, in response to locating the object in the cache, transmitsthe object to the client in response to the first request, and inresponse to locating the object in the cache, transmits a second requestto the server to obtain a status of the object.

In another embodiment, the cache manager includes software or hardware.In some embodiments, the cache is random access memory or disk storage.

In still another embodiment, the appliance transmits the object to theclient and transmits the second request to the server substantiallysimultaneously. In other embodiments, the appliance transmits the objectto the client and transmits the second request to the server inparallel. In some other embodiments, the appliance transmits the cachedobject to the client prior to receiving a response to the second requestfrom the server.

In a further embodiment, the appliance transmits to the server,responsive to the determination, a conditional request to retrieve theobject. In some embodiments, the appliance receives a response to theconditional request indicating the object has not changed. In otherembodiments, the cache manager receives an updated version of the objectfrom the server in response to the conditional request. In still otherembodiments, the cache manager stores the updated version of the objectin the local cache.

In one aspect, the current invention relates to a method forspeculatively prefetching an object using idle network bandwidth. In oneembodiment, a device receives via a network a communication identifyingan object. The device generates a request to an object server for theobject, where the request is identified as a speculative request. Thedevice determines the availability of idle network bandwidth to obtainthe object from the object server. The device transmits, in response tothe determination of availability of idle network bandwidth, thegenerated request to the object server according to a transmission rateto maintain bandwidth usage from the speculative request within apredetermined level.

In another embodiment, the device transmits the communication to arequester. In other embodiments, the method includes transmitting thegenerated request prior to a user requesting the object identified bythe communication. In some other embodiments, the method includesgenerating the request prior to a user requesting the object identifiedby the communication. In some embodiments, the device receives theobject in response to the transmitted request. In other embodiments, thedevice stores the received object in a cache. In still otherembodiments, the method includes receiving a page having a hyperlinkidentifying an object.

In a further embodiment, the device identifies the generated request asa speculative request by encoding a field of one of a transport layer orinternet protocol layer header option to a predetermined value. In someembodiments, the device identifies the generated request as aspeculative request by encoding a value of an application layer protocoloption to a predetermined value. In some other embodiments, the deviceidentifies the generated request as a speculative request by setting avalue of one of a Type of Service (TOS) or a DiffServ Codepoint (DSCP)in a field of an Internet Protocol (IP) frame to a predetermined value.In other embodiments, the device identifies the generated request as aspeculative request by making an entry in a connection state tableidentifying the request as speculative.

In another embodiment, the device identifies the generated request as alower priority for transmission than non-speculative requests forobjects. In other embodiments, the device is either a client, a server,or an appliance between the client and the server.

In another aspect, the current invention relates to a system forspeculatively prefetching an object using idle network bandwidth. In oneembodiment, the system includes a means for intercepting a communicationtransmitted via a network, where the communication comprising anidentifier of an object. The system also includes a means for generatinga request packet to an object server for the object identified, therequest identified as a speculative request. The system further includesa means for determining availability of idle network bandwidth to obtainthe object from the object server. In response to the determination ofavailability of idle network bandwidth, the system includes a means fortransmitting the generated request packet to the object server,according to a transmission rate to maintain bandwidth usage from thespeculative request within a predetermined level.

In another embodiment, the system forwards the communication to arequester. In some embodiments, the system transmits the generatedrequest packet prior to a user requesting the object identified by thepage. In other embodiments, the system generates the request packetprior to a user requesting the object identified by the page. In someembodiments, the system stores the received object in a cache. In stillfurther embodiments, the page includes a hyperlink identifying anobject.

In still another embodiment, the system identifies the generated requestas a speculative request by encoding a field in either a transport layeror internet protocol layer header option to a predetermined value. Inother embodiments, the system identifies the generated request as aspeculative request by encoding a value of an application layer protocoloption to a predetermined value. In some other embodiments, the systemidentifies the generated request as a speculative request by setting avalue of either a Type of Service (TOS) or a DiffServ Codepoint (DSCP)in a field of an Internet Protocol (IP) frame to a predetermined value.In some embodiments, the system identifies the generated request as aspeculative request by making an entry in a connection state tableidentifying the request as speculative. In other embodiments, the systemidentifies the generated request as a lower priority for transmissionthan non-speculative requests for objects.

In a further aspect, the current invention relates to a method ofspeculatively prefetching an object via multiple devices using idlenetwork bandwidth. In one embodiment, a first device receives acommunication transmitted from a server to a client, where thecommunication specifies an identifier of an object, and the firstappliance forwards the communication to the requester. The first devicetransmits a request to the server for the object identified by thecommunication, and the first device generates the request and identifiesthe request as speculative. A second device identifies the requestreceived from the first device as a speculative request. The seconddevice determines the availability of idle network bandwidth to obtainthe object from the server. The second device, in response to thedetermination of availability of idle network bandwidth, transmits therequest according to a transmission rate to maintain bandwidth usagefrom the speculative request within a predetermined level.

In another embodiment, a step in the method includes transmitting thegenerated request prior to a user requesting the object identified bythe communication. In other embodiments, a step in the method includesgenerating the request prior to a user requesting the object identifiedby the communication.

In still another embodiment, the second device receives the object inresponse to the transmitted request. In other embodiments, the seconddevice stores the received object in a cache. In some embodiments, thesecond device transmits the object to the first device. In some otherembodiments, the first device stores the received object in a cache.

In another embodiment, the first device receives a page including ahyperlink identifying the object. In some embodiments, the first deviceidentifies the generated request as a speculative request by encoding afield of one of a transport layer or internet protocol layer headeroption to a predetermined value. In other embodiments, the first deviceidentifies the generated request as a speculative request by encoding avalue of an application layer protocol option to a predetermined value.In some other embodiments, the first device identifies the generatedrequest as a speculative request by encoding a value of either a Type ofService (TOS) or a DiffServ Codepoint (DSCP) in a field of an InternetProtocol (IP) frame to a predetermined value. In still otherembodiments, the second device identifies the generated request is aspeculative request by identifying an encoded value of an applicationlayer protocol option specifies a predetermined value. In furtherembodiments, the second device identifies the generated request is aspeculative request by identifying an encoded value of either a Type ofService (TOS) or a DiffServ Codepoint (DSCP) field of an InternetProtocol (IP) frame specifies a predetermined value.

In a further embodiment, the second device identifies the generatedrequest is a speculative request by identifying by an entry in aconnection state table identifying the request as speculative. In someembodiments, the method includes transmitting, by the first device orthe second device, the request at a lower priority of transmission thannon-speculative requests for objects.

In another embodiment, the first device is either a client or anappliance. In some embodiments, the second device is an appliance. Inother embodiments, the method includes transmitting, by either the firstdevice or the second device, the request at a lower priority oftransmission than non-speculative requests for objects.

In one aspect, the current invention relates to a method for refreshingcached objects based on user requests for pages identifying the cachedobjects. In one embodiment, a device receives a page via a network,where the page identifies an object. The device forwards the page to auser requesting the page. The device determines that the object isstored in a cache. The device transmits a request for a status of theobject to a remote object server prior to the user requesting the objectfrom the page.

In another embodiment, the device transmits to the remote object server,in response to the determination, a conditional request to retrieve theobject. In some embodiments, the device receives, in response to therequest, an indication from the remote object server that the object isvalid. In other embodiments, the device receives, in response to therequest, an updated version of the object from the remote object server.In some other embodiments, the method includes determining, by thedevice, an expiry of the object has expired. In still other embodiments,the method includes determining, by the device, the object is stale.

In still another embodiment, the device determines that the remoteobject server is not available to provide the object, and not servingthe object from the cache in response to the determination. In otherembodiments, the device determines that the remote object server doesnot allow the user access to the object, and not serving the object fromthe cache in response to the determination. In some embodiments, themethod includes determining that the object exists in the cache and thata status identifier associated with the object indicates that the objectis valid. In other embodiments, the method includes not transmitting, bythe device, the request to the remote object server in response to thedetermination. In still other embodiments, a step in the method includesdetermining that a size of the object is below a predetermined thresholdand transmitting the request for the status of the object to the remoteobject server in response to the determination. In other embodiments,the device identifies one or more levels of the page having objects,determines objects at each of the one or more levels are located in thecache, and transmits requests for a status of the objects to the remoteobject server in response to the determination.

In another embodiment, the device transmits the requests prior to theuser requesting a level from the one or more levels of the page. Inother embodiments, the device identifies the request to the remoteobject server as a speculative request. In some embodiments, the deviceincludes either a client or a server. In some other embodiments, thedevice includes an appliance intercepting and forwarding communicationsbetween a client and a server.

In another further aspect, the current invention relates to a device forrefreshing cached objects based on user requests for pages identifyingthe object. In one embodiment, the device includes a means for receivinga page via a network, the page identifying an object. The device alsoincludes a means for forwarding the page to a user requesting the page.The device further includes means for determining that the object isstored in a cache. The device also includes a means for transmitting arequest for a status of the object to a remote object server prior tothe user requesting the object from the page.

In another embodiment, the device transmits to the remote object server,responsive to the determination, a conditional request to retrieve theobject. In some embodiments, the device receives in response to therequest an indication from the remote object server that the object isvalid. In other embodiments, the device receives, in response to therequest, an updated version of the object from the remote object server.In some embodiments, the device determines an expiry of the object hasexpired. In some other embodiments, the device determines the object isstale.

In still another embodiment, the device determines that the remoteobject server is not available to provide the object, and does not servethe object from the cache in response to the determination. In someembodiments, the device determines that the remote object server doesnot allow the user access to the object, and does not server the objectfrom the cache in response to the determination. In some otherembodiments, the device determines that the object exists in the cacheand that a status identifier associated with the object indicates thatthe object is valid. In still other embodiments, the device does nottransmit the request to the remote object server in response to thedetermination. In still further embodiments, the device determines thata size of the object is below a predetermined threshold and transmitsthe request for the status of the object to the remote object server inresponse to the determination. In some embodiments, the deviceidentifies one or more levels of the page having objects, determiningobjects at each of the one or more levels are located in the cache, andthe device transmits requests for a status of the objects to the remoteobject server in response to the determination.

In another embodiment, the device transmits the requests prior to theuser requesting a level from the one or more levels of the page. In someembodiments, the device identifies the request to the remote objectserver as a speculative request. In other embodiments, the device iseither a client or a server. In some other embodiments, the deviceintercepts and forwards communications between a client and a server.

In still another aspect, the current invention relates to a method, in anetworked environment including a network appliance acting as a proxybetween a client requesting pages and a server responding to clientrequests, for refreshing objects cached by the appliance. In oneembodiment, the appliance receives a page transmitted by a server to aclient in response to a request from a user of the client, where thepage identifies an object. The appliance forwards the intercepted pageto the client. The method includes determining, by a cache manager ofthe appliance, that the object is stored in a cache of the appliance.The appliance transmits a request for a status of the object to theserver prior to the user of the client requesting the object from thepage.

In another embodiment, the appliance transmits to the server, inresponse to the determination, a conditional request to retrieve theobject. In some embodiments, the appliance receives, in response to therequest, an indication from the remote object server that the object isvalid. In other embodiments, the appliance receives, in response to therequest, an updated version of the object from the remote object server.

In still another embodiment, the method includes determining, by thecache manager, an expiry of the object has expired. In otherembodiments, the method includes determining, by the cache manager, theobject is stale.

In another embodiment, the appliance determines that the server is notavailable to provide the object, and not serving the object from thecache in response to the determination. In some embodiments, theappliance determines that the server does not allow the user access tothe object, and does not serve the object from the cache in response tothe determination. In other embodiments, the method includesdetermining, by the cache manager, the object exists in the cache andthat a status identifier associated with the object indicates that theobject is valid. In still other embodiments, the appliance does nottransmit the request to the remote in response to the determination. Insome embodiments, the method includes determining, by the cache manager,that a size of the object in the cache is below a predeterminedthreshold and transmitting by the appliance the request for the statusof the object to the remote object server in response to thedetermination. In some other embodiments, the appliance identifies oneor more levels of the page having objects, and determines, by the cachemanager, objects at each of the one or more levels are located in thecache, and transmitting, by the appliances, requests for a status of theobjects to the server in response to the determination.

In still another embodiment, the appliance transmits the requests priorto the user requesting a level from the one or more levels of the page.In some embodiments, the appliance identifies the request to the serveras a speculative request.

In one aspect, the present invention relates to a method for determiningby a device whether to prefetch an object identified from a page byfetching header information of the object from a remote object server.In one embodiment, a device receives a page including an identifier ofan object. The device transmits a request generated by the device toobtain header information of the object from a remote object server. Themethod further includes receiving, by the device, in response to thegenerated request, header information for the object. The devicedetermines, in response to the received header information, whether toprefetch the object from the remote object server.

In another embodiment, the method includes determining to store theobject in a cache in response to the received information. In someembodiments, the device identifies the identifier of the object from thepage, and determines the object is not stored in a cache. In otherembodiments, the device forwards the page to either a user, a client ora browser. In still another embodiment, the device prefetches the objectprior to the user requesting the object or prior to receiving a requestfor the object. In some embodiments, the method includes interceptingthe page including a hyperlink identifying an object. In someembodiments, the method includes transmitting, by the device, an HTTPHEAD command to a remote object server identified by a uniform resourcelocator associated with the object of the page.

In another embodiment, the method includes receiving, in response to thegenerated request, header information of the object identifying amaximum amount of time for which the object is valid. In otherembodiments, the method includes receiving, in response to the generatedrequest, header information of the object identifying a date on whichthe object was last modified.

In another embodiment, the method includes determining, in response tothe received header information, identifying the object already storedin a cache as valid. In some embodiments, the method includesdetermining, in response to the received header information, to modifythe time period for which an object that is already stored in a cache isvalid.

In still another embodiment, the device transmits a request to obtainthe object from the remote object server in response to the receivedheader information. In some embodiments, the device stores in a cachethe object received from the remote object server. In other embodiments,the method includes determining, responsive to the received headerinformation, to modify a time period for which an object that is alreadystored in a cache is valid. In some embodiments, the device is either aclient or an appliance intercepting and forwarding communicationsbetween a client and a server.

In another aspect, the present invention relates to a device fordetermining whether to prefetch an object identified from an interceptedpage by fetching header information of the object from a remote objectserver. In one embodiment, the device includes a means for receiving apage including an identifier of an object. The device also includes ameans for transmitting a request generated by the device to obtainheader information of the object from a remote object server. The devicemay further include a means for receiving in response to the generatedrequest, a header for the object. The device also includes a means fordetermining responsive to the received header information whether toprefetch the object from the remote object server.

In another embodiment, the device determines, responsive to the receivedinformation, to store the object in a cache. In some embodiments, thedevice identifies the identifier of the object from the page, anddetermines the object is not stored in a cache. In other embodiments,the device forwards the page to one of a user, a client or a browser. Insome other embodiments, the device transmits the generated request tothe remote object server prior to a user requesting the object.

In still another embodiment, the device includes a means for receivingthe page including a hyperlink identifying an object. In otherembodiments, the device transmits an HTTP HEAD command to the remoteobject server identified by a uniform resource locator associated withthe object of the intercepted page. In some other embodiments, thedevice receives, in response to the generated request, headerinformation of the object identifying a maximum amount of time for whichthe object is valid. In other embodiments, the device receives, inresponse to the generated request, header information of the objectidentifying a date on which the object was last modified. In otherembodiments, the device determines, responsive to the received headerinformation, to identify the object already stored in a cache as valid.In some embodiments, the device determines responsive to the receivedheader information, to modify the time period for which an object thatis already stored in a cache is valid.

In another embodiment, the device transmits a request to obtain theobject from the remote object server in response to the received headerinformation. In some embodiments, the device stores the object receivedfrom the remote object server in a cache. In some other embodiments, thedevice determines, responsive to the received header information, tomodify a time period for which an object that is already stored in acache is valid. In some embodiments, the device is either a client or anappliance intercepting and forwarding communications between the clientand the server.

In another aspect, the present invention relates to a method forprefetching by a device header information of an object from a remoteobject server. In one embodiment, a device receives a page including anidentifier of an object. The method also includes determining, by thedevice, that a header of the object identified by the page is stored ina cache. The method further includes generating, by the device, inresponse to the determination, a request for the header of the objectfrom a remote object server prior to the user requesting the object fromthe page.

In another embodiment, the device receives, in response to the generatedrequest, header information for the object. In some embodiments, thedevice updates the cached header information based on the receivedheader information. In other embodiments, the device receives a requestfrom a requester for the header information of the object.

In another embodiment, the device transmits the header informationstored in the cache to the requester. In some embodiments, the requestcomprises an HTTP HEAD command. In other embodiments, the requestcomprises an HTTP GET command using an “if-modified-since.” In someembodiments, the device determines the object of the request has notbeen modified, and responding to the request with the header informationstored in the cache. In other embodiments, the device determines theobject of the request has been modified and in response to thedetermination, forwarding the request to a server. In some embodiments,the device receives the object from the request. In some otherembodiments, the device responds to the request with the object receivedfrom the server. In some embodiments, the device stores the object tothe cache.

In still another aspect, the present invention relates to a device forprefetching by a device header information of an object from a remoteobject server. In one embodiment, the device includes a means forreceiving a page including an identifier of an object. The device alsoincludes a means for determining that a header of the object identifiedby the page is stored in a cache. The device may include a means forgenerating, in response to the determination, a request for the headerof the object from a remote object server prior to the user requestingthe object from the page.

In another embodiment, the device includes a means for receiving, by thedevice, in response to the generated request, header information for theobject. In other embodiments, the device includes a means for updatingthe cached header information based on the received header information.

In still another embodiment, the device includes a means for receiving arequest from a requester for the header information of the object. Inother embodiments, the device includes transmitting the headerinformation stored in the cache to the requester. In some embodiments,the request comprises an HTTP HEAD command. In other embodiments, therequest comprises an HTTP GET command using an “if-modified-since.” Insome embodiments, the device includes a means for determining whetherthe object of the request has not been modified, and responding to therequest with the header information stored in the cache. In otherembodiments, the device includes a means for determining that the objectof the request has been modified and in response to the determination,forwarding the request to a server.

In another embodiment, the device includes a means for receiving theobject from the requester. In some embodiments, the device includes ameans for responding to the request with the object received from theserver. In some other embodiments, the device includes a means forstoring the object to the cache. In some embodiments, the device iseither a client or an appliance intercepting and forwardingcommunications between the client and a server.

In one aspect, the present invention is related to a method ofprefetching non-cacheable content to store in a compression history toimprove compression of subsequently transmitted pages havingnon-cacheable content. A device receives, a first page transmitted by aserver to a client, the first page identifying a non-cacheable object.The method includes generating, by the device, a request for thenon-cacheable object identified by the page prior to a user requestingthe non-cacheable object from the first page. The device transmits therequest to the server. The device stores the non-cacheable objectreceived from the server to a first compression history.

In one embodiment, the device receives the first page transmitted via afirst session of a user. In another embodiment, the method includes thefirst page, which includes a personalized version of a page for theuser. In some embodiments, the non-cacheable object is dynamicallygenerated by the server. In other embodiments, the device receives asecond page transmitted by the server to the client, the second pagecomprising non-cacheable content.

In yet one embodiment, the server transmits the second page via either afirst session or a second session of a user. The second page comprises apersonalized version of a page for the user. In another embodiment, thedevice determines a portion of the second page matches a portion of thenon-cacheable object stored in the compression history. In someembodiments, the device compresses, in response to the determination,the second page using the matching portion of the non-cacheable object.The device transmits the compressed second page to the client.

In one embodiment, a second device receives the compressed second page,and uncompressing the compressed second page using the matchingnon-cacheable object of the first page stored in a second compressionhistory. The second device receives the first page forwarded by thedevice. In another embodiment, the second device transmits a requestgenerated by the second device to obtain from the server thenon-cacheable object identified by the first page.

In one embodiment, the second device stores to a second compressionhistory the non-cacheable object received from the server in response tothe generated request. In another embodiment, the device receives, viamultiple user sessions multiple pages identifying multiple non-cacheableobjects, transmitting multiple requests generated by the device toobtain the non-cacheable objects from one or more servers. The devicestores the multiple non-cacheable objects received in response to therequest to the first compression history.

In yet another embodiment, the device receives a third page, anddetermines a portion of the third page matches one or more portions ofthe multiple non-cacheable objects stored in the first compressionhistory. A portion of the compression history is stored in one of memoryor disk storage. In another embodiment, the device transmits at least aportion of the first compression history to a second device to store ina second compression history. The device comprises one of a client or anappliance.

In one aspect, the present invention is related to a method ofprefetching content via a network file transfer to use as a compressionhistory for compressing Hypertext Protocol (HTTP) communications. Themethod includes executing a non-HTTP network file transfer of one ormore files from a first device to a second device prior to a userrequesting a file of the one or more files via an HTTP request. Anappliance intercepts packets of the non-HTTP network file transfer. Theappliance stores content of the one or more files from the interceptedpackets to a compression history.

In one embodiment, the appliance receives a page transmitted by a serverto a client via an HTTP protocol in response to an HTTP request. Inanother embodiment, the appliance determines a portion of the pagematches at least a portion of the content of the one or more filesstored in the first compression history. In some embodiments, theappliance compresses the page based on the determination. In otherembodiments, the appliance transmits the compressed page to the client.The method includes intercepting, by one of the client or a secondappliance, the compressed page, and uncompressing the compressed pageusing one or more files from the network file transfer stored in asecond compression history. The page comprises a file from the one ormore files of the network file transfer.

In yet another embodiment, an administrator of the appliance initiatesexecution of the network file transfer to preload the compressionhistory of the appliance. The network file transfer comprises a remotefile copy. In another embodiment, the packets comprise one of a remotecopy protocol or file transfer protocol. The appliance forwards theintercepted network packets to the second device. In another embodiment,the second device discards the one or more files from the network filetransfer.

In one embodiment, a second appliance intercepts the forwarded networkpackets, and storing content of the one or more files from theintercepted packets to a second compression history. The applianceinitiates the execution of the network file transfer. In anotherembodiment, the appliance initiates execution of the network filetransfer in response to a policy of a policy engine.

In one aspect, the present invention is related to a method fordynamically determining whether to check a status of a cached objectbased on an operational characteristic of a connection to a remoteobject server. The method includes, intercepting, by a device, an objecttransmitted from a server to a requestor via a transport layerconnection. The device stores the object in a cache. The method includesdetecting, by the device, whether an operational characteristic of thetransport layer connection to the server is within a predeterminedthreshold. The device determines, in response to the detection, whetherto transmit a request to the server to obtain a status of the object.

In one embodiment, the device forwards the object to the requester. Inanother embodiment, the device detects available bandwidth via thetransport layer connection to the server is not within the predeterminedthreshold. In some embodiments, the device determines, in response tothe detection, to not transmit the request to the server. In otherembodiments, the device detects a speed of the transport layerconnection to the server is not within the predetermined threshold. Inanother embodiment, the device determines, in response to the detection,to not transmit the request to the server.

In one embodiments, the device detects a round-trip time of thetransport layer connection to the server is not within the predeterminedthreshold. In another embodiment, the device determines, in response tothe detection, to not transmit the request to the server. In someembodiments, the device detects if the server is not available via thetransport layer connection or the transport layer connection is notoperational. In other embodiments, the device determines, in response tothe detection, to not transmit the request to the server.

In yet another embodiment, the device detects an operationalcharacteristic of the transport layer connection to the server is withinthe predetermined threshold for freshening the object in the cache. Insome embodiments, the device transmits, in response to the detection,the request to the server to obtain the status of the object. The devicetransmits the request to the server prior to a user requesting theobject from the page. In another embodiment, the device transmits aconditional request for the object to the server. In other embodiments,the device receives an updated version of the object from the server,and stores the object in the cache.

In still another embodiment, the device receives the status of theobject indicating the object in the cache is stale, and in response tothe status, transmitting a second request for the object to the server.In some embodiments, the device detects that the transport layerconnection to the server has available bandwidth greater than apredetermined bandwidth threshold. The device transmits the request tothe server in response to the detection. In some embodiments, the deviceincludes a client, while in other embodiments, the device includes anappliance intercepting and forwarding communications between the clientand the server.

In another aspect, the present invention is related to an appliance of anetworked environment including a network appliance acting as a proxybetween a client requesting pages and a server responding to clientrequests, an appliance for dynamically determining whether to check astatus of a cached object based on an operational characteristic of aconnection to the server. The appliance includes means for interceptingan object transmitted from a server to a client via a transport layerconnection and storing the object in a cache. The means for detectingwhether an operational characteristic of the transport layer connectionto the server is within a predetermined threshold. The applianceincludes a means for determining, in response to the detection, whetherto transmit a request to the server to obtain a status of the object.The appliance forwards the object to the client.

In one embodiment, the appliance includes means for detecting availablebandwidth via the transport layer connection to the server is not withinthe predetermined threshold. In another embodiment, the applianceincludes a means for determining, in response to the detection, to nottransmit the request to the server. The appliance detects speed of thetransport layer connection to the server is not within the predeterminedthreshold. In some embodiments, the appliance includes a means fordetermining, in response to the detection, to not transmit the requestto the server.

In yet another embodiment, the appliance includes a means for detectinga round-trip time of the transport layer connection to the server is notwithin the predetermined threshold. In some embodiments, the appliancedetermines, in response to the detection, to not transmit the request tothe server. In other embodiments, the appliance includes detecting oneof the server is not available via the transport layer connection or thetransport layer connection is not operational. In some embodiments, theappliance includes determining, in response to the detection, to nottransmit the request to the server.

In still another embodiment, the appliance includes detecting anoperational characteristic of the transport layer connection to theserver is within the predetermined threshold for freshening the objectin the cache. In another embodiment, the appliance includestransmitting, in response to the detection, the request to the server toobtain the status of the object. In some embodiments, the applianceincludes a means for transmitting the request to the server prior to auser requesting the object from the page. In other embodiments, theappliance transmits a conditional request for the object to the server.

In another embodiment, the appliance includes a cache manager forreceiving an updated version of the object from the server, and storingthe object in the cache. In some embodiments, the appliance includesreceiving the status of the object indicating the object in the cache isstale, and in response to the status, transmitting a second request forthe object to the server.

In one embodiment, the appliance includes a means for detecting that thetransport layer connection to the server has available bandwidth greaterthan a predetermined bandwidth threshold, and transmitting the requestto the server in response to the detection.

In one aspect, the current invention relates to a method for updating anexpiration period of a cached object responsive to one or more requeststo refresh the object on a page. In one embodiment, a device interceptsa request to refresh a page identifying an object, the device storingthe object in a cache with an expiration period. The device determines,in response to the request, a second expiration period for the cachedobject. The device establishes the second expiration period as theexpiration period for the cached object in the cache.

In another embodiment, the device sets the second expiration periodshorter than the expiration period in response to the request. In otherembodiments, the method includes the device intercepting the requestgenerated by selecting a refresh button provided by a browserapplication. In some other embodiments, the device intercepts therequest to refresh a page generated by a user selecting a button of abrowser application.

In still another embodiment, the device intercepts multiple requests torefresh the page. In other embodiments, in response to the multiplerequests, the device determines to decrease the expiration period of thecached object by a predetermined threshold. In some other embodiments,the device intercepts the request to refresh the page after apredetermined time threshold. In other embodiments, the deviceintercepts the request to refresh the page beyond a predetermined timeafter forwarding the page to a requester. In some other embodiments, thedevice intercepts the request to refresh the page beyond a predeterminedtime after receiving a previous request to refresh the page.

In another embodiment, the device sets the second expiration periodlonger than the expiration period. In some embodiments, the device iseither a client, a server, or an appliance intercepting and forwardingcommunications between the client and the server.

In another aspect, the current invention relates to a device forupdating an expiration period of a cached object responsive to one ormore requests to refresh the object on a page. In one embodiment, thedevice includes a means for intercepting a request to refresh a pageidentifying an object, the object stored in a cache with an expirationperiod. The device also includes a means for determining, in response tothe request, a second expiration period for the cached object. Thedevice also includes a means for establishing the second expirationperiod as the expiration period for the cached object in the cache.

In another embodiment, the device sets the second expiration periodshorter than the expiration period in response to the request. In someembodiments, the request to refresh a page includes a request generatedby selecting a refresh button provided by a browser application. Inother embodiments, the request to refresh a page is generated by a userselecting a button of a browser application.

In another embodiment, the device intercepts multiple requests torefresh the page. In some embodiments, in response to the multiplerequests, the device decreases the expiration period of the cachedobject by a predetermined threshold. In some embodiments, the deviceintercepts the request to refresh the page after a predetermined timethreshold. In other embodiments, the request to refresh the page isreceived by device beyond a predetermined time after forwarding the pageto a requester. In still other embodiments, the request to refresh thepage is received by device beyond a predetermined time afterintercepting a previous request to refresh the page.

In still another embodiment, the device includes a means for setting thesecond expiration period longer than the expiration period. In otherembodiments, device is either a client, a server, or an applianceintercepting and forwarding communications between the client and theserver.

In one aspect, the current invention relates to a method in a networkenvironment having an appliance acting as a proxy between a clientrequesting pages and a server responding to client requests, where themethod resolves an address of a host name identified by a uniformresource locator using the internet protocol address identified as adestination of a request. In one embodiment, the method includesintercepting, by an appliance, a request packet from a client requestingvia an application protocol layer a uniform resource locator of a page.The method also includes identifying, by the appliance, from the requestpacket an internet protocol address of a destination of the request. Theappliance associates the internet protocol address of the destinationwith a host name identified by the uniform resource locator. The methodalso includes storing, by the appliance, in a cache an entry identifyingthe internet protocol address as an address of the host name. The methodincludes intercepting, by the appliance, one of a Domain Name Server(DNS) request of the client to resolve the host name or a second requestof the client for the uniform resource locator identifying the hostname. The method also includes identifying, by the appliance, the entryin the cache as a resolved address of the host name.

In another embodiment, the appliance does not query a DNS server toresolve the address of the host name. In other embodiments, the clientresolves the internet protocol address of the host name identified bythe uniform resource locator requested by the client prior totransmitting the request packet.

In still another embodiment, the client transmits via the request packeta request to open a transport layer connection to the destinationidentified by the internet protocol address of the host name. In someembodiments, the method includes extracting, by the appliance, theinternet protocol address of the destination from a field of a header ofthe request packet. In other embodiments, the method includesidentifying, by the appliance, the internet protocol address from eithera network layer or transport layer of the request packet. In still otherembodiments, the method includes responding by the appliance to the DNSrequest of the client with the entry in the cache. In some otherembodiments, the method includes identifying, by the appliance, a cachedURL of the second request using the entry in the cache providing theresolved address of the host name.

In another aspect, the current invention relates to a method, in anetwork environment having an appliance acting as a proxy between aclient requesting pages and a server responding to client requests, forupdating by the appliance a cached domain name server (DNS) address of ahost name. In one embodiment, the method includes intercepting, by anappliance, either a Domain Name Server (DNS) request of a client toresolve a host name or a request of the client for a uniform resourcelocator identifying the host name. The method also includes storing, bythe appliance, in a cache a resolved DNS address of the host name. Themethod further includes intercepting, by the appliance, a second requestfrom the client for a page. The method also includes forwarding, by theappliance, the page to the client. The method also further includesdetermining, by the appliance, a uniform resource locator of theforwarded page identifies the host name. The method also includestransmitting, by the appliance in response to the determination, arequest generated by the appliance to resolve the address of the hostname with a server.

In one embodiment, the method includes the appliance transmitting a DNSresolution request to a DNS server, and receiving an address resolutionof the host name. In some embodiment, the appliance stores the addressresolution of the host name in the cache. In other embodiments, themethod includes the appliance transmitting the request prior to a userrequesting the uniform resource locator from the page. In some otherembodiments, the method the appliance transmitting the request prior tothe client requesting DNS resolution of the host name identified by theuniform resource locator of the page. In further embodiments, theappliance determines the address for the host name is located in thecache.

In a further embodiment, the method includes establishing, by theappliance, an expiration period in the cache for the cached DNS addressof the host name. In some embodiments, the method includes the appliancedetermining the expiration period for the cached DNS address hasexpired. In other embodiments, the method the appliance determining aremaining time of the expiration period for the cached DNS address iswithin a predetermined threshold.

In another embodiment, the appliance generates the request as aspeculative request. In other embodiments, the appliance transmits thegenerated request at a lower priority of transmission thannon-speculative requests.

In still another embodiment, the method includes forwarding, by theappliance in response to receiving the second request, the secondrequest to the cached DNS address of the host name identified by theuniform resource locator and transmitting a third request to a DNSserver to obtain an updated resolution of the DNS address of the hostname stored in the cache. In other embodiments, the method includesforwarding, by the appliance the second request to the cached DNSaddress of the host name, and the third request to the DNS server,either substantially simultaneously or in parallel to each other.

In one aspect, the current invention relates to an appliance acting as aproxy between a client requesting pages and a server responding toclient requests, the appliance updating a cached domain name server(DNS) address of a host name. In one embodiment, the appliance includesa means for intercepting one of a Domain Name Server (DNS) request of aclient to resolve a host name or a request of the client for a uniformresource locator identifying the host name. In an embodiment, theappliance includes a cache manager for storing in a cache a resolved DNSaddress of the host name. The appliance also includes, a means forintercepting a second request from the client for a page. The appliancefurther includes a means for forwarding the page to the client. Theappliance further also includes a means for determining a uniformresource locator of the forwarded page identifies the host name. Theappliance also includes a means for transmitting, in response to thedetermination, a request generated by the appliance to resolve headdress of the host name with a server.

In another embodiment, the appliance transmits a DNS resolution requestto a DNS server, and receives an address resolution of the host name. Inother embodiments, the cache manager stores the address resolution ofthe host name in the cache.

In still another embodiment, the appliance transmits the request priorto a user requesting the uniform resource locator from the page. Inother embodiments, the appliance transmits the request prior to theclient requesting DNS resolution of the host name identified by theuniform resource locator of the page.

In another embodiment, the cache manager determines the address for thehost name is located in the cache. In some other embodiment, the cachemanager establishes an expiration period in the cache for the cachedaddress of the host name. In some embodiments, the cache managerdetermines the expiration period for the cached address has expired. Instill other embodiment, the cache manager determines a remaining time ofthe expiration period for the cached address is within a predeterminedthreshold.

In another embodiment, the appliance includes a means for generating therequest as a speculative request. In some embodiments, the appliancetransmits the generated request at a lower priority of transmission thannon-speculative requests. In some other embodiments, the applianceforwards, in response to receiving the second request, the secondrequest to the cached address of the host name identified by the uniformresource locator and transmits a third request to a DNS server to obtainan updated resolution of the address of the host name stored in thecache. In still other embodiments, the appliance forwards the secondrequest to the cached address of the host name, and the third request tothe DNS server one of substantially simultaneously or in parallel toeach other.

The details of various embodiments of the invention are set forth in theaccompanying drawings and the description below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing and other objects, aspects, features, and advantages ofthe invention will become more apparent and better understood byreferring to the following description taken in conjunction with theaccompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1A is a block diagram of an embodiment of a network environment fora client to access a server via one or more network optimizationappliances;

FIG. 1B is a block diagram of another embodiment of a networkenvironment for a client to access a server via one or more networkoptimization appliances in conjunction with other network appliances;

FIG. 1C is a block diagram of another embodiment of a networkenvironment for a client to access a server via a single networkoptimization appliance deployed stand-alone or in conjunction with othernetwork appliances;

FIGS. 1D and 1E are block diagrams of embodiments of a computing device;

FIG. 2A is a block diagram of an embodiment of an appliance forprocessing communications between a client and a server;

FIG. 2B is a block diagram of another embodiment of a client and/orserver deploying the network optimization features of the appliance;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a client for communicatingwith a server using the network optimization feature;

FIG. 4A is a block diagram of an embodiment of a multiple-tier cache andindexing system for maintaining the size of memory for object indexeswhile adjusting the size of disk storage for storing the objects;

FIG. 4B is a flow diagram of steps in an embodiment of a method formaintaining the number of objects the cache is allowed to store to aportion of the cache while adjusting the size of the storage used by thecache;

FIG. 4C is a flow diagram of steps in an embodiment of a method formaintaining the number of objects the cache is allowed to store to aportion of the cache while adjusting the size of the memory used by thecache;

FIG. 4D is a flow diagram of steps in an embodiment of a method fordetermining a tier of the cache to store an object;

FIG. 4E is a flow diagram of steps in an embodiment of a method forstoring larger objects to a storage tier of the cache and smallerobjects to remaining portion of storage used by the cache;

FIG. 4F is a flow diagram of steps in an embodiment of a method formaintaining a size of a storage tier used by the cache in response tochanging the storage size or memory size used by the cache;

FIG. 5A is a block diagram of an example embodiment of a system used toillustrate the security and reliability techniques described inconjunctions with FIG. 5B:

FIG. 5B has multiple flow diagrams of steps of embodiments for method toperform security and reliability techniques for proxying a connection;

FIG. 6A is a block diagram of an example embodiment of a system forillustrating the parallel revalidation technique of cached objects asdescribed in conjunction with FIG. 6B;

FIG. 6B is a flow diagram of steps of an embodiment of a method toperform a parallel revalidation technique of a cached object;

FIG. 7A is a block diagram of an example embodiment of a system forillustrating the QoS prefeshening technique of cached objects asdescribed in conjunction with FIG. 7B;

FIG. 7B is a flow diagram of steps of an embodiment of a method forproviding QoS speculative requests for prefreshening cached objects;

FIG. 7C is a block diagram of an example embodiment of a multipleappliance system for illustrating the QoS prefreshening technique ofcached objects as described in conjunction with FIG. 7D;

FIG. 7D is a flow diagram of steps of an embodiment of a method forproviding QoS speculative requests for prefreshening cached objects;

FIG. 8A is a block diagram of an example embodiment of a system forusing a stack-oriented approach to prefetching objects to cache asdescribed in conjunction with FIG. 8B;

FIG. 8B is a flow diagram of steps of an embodiment of a method forproviding a stack-oriented prefetching technique of objects to cache;

FIG. 9A is a block diagram of an example embodiment of a system forprefreshening objects in a cache prior to user requests for the objectas described in conjunction with FIG. 9B;

FIG. 9B is a flow diagram of steps of an embodiment of a method forprefreshening objects in the cache prior to user requests for theobject;

FIG. 10A is a block diagram of an example embodiment of a system fordetermining to prefetch an objects by requesting header information ofthe object from a server as described in conjunction with FIG. 10B;

FIG. 10B is a flow diagram of steps of an embodiment of a method fordetermining to prefetch an object responsive to obtaining headerinformation of the object from a server;

FIG. 10C is a flow diagram of steps of an embodiment of a method forupdating header information of the object in the cache in conjunctionwith FIG. 10A;

FIG. 11A is a block diagram of an example embodiment of a system forusing non-cacheable content as compression history as described inconjunction with FIG. 11A;

FIG. 11B is a flow diagram of steps of an embodiment of a method forusing non-cacheable content as compression history;

FIG. 11C is a block diagram of an example embodiment of a system forprefetching non-cacheable content as compression history as described inconjunction with FIG. 11B and 11A;

FIG. 11D is a flow diagram of steps of an embodiment of a method forprefetching non-cacheable content as compression history;

FIG. 12A is a block diagram of an example embodiment of a system forusing non-HTTP network file transfer as compression history as describedin conjunction with FIG. 12B;

FIG. 12B is a flow diagram of steps of an embodiment of a method forusing non-HTTP network file transfer content as compression history;

FIG. 13A is a block diagram of an example embodiment of a system fordetermining whether to prefetch/prefresh an object based on operationalcondition of the device or a status of the connection as described inconjunction with FIG. 13B;

FIG. 13B is a flow diagram of steps of an embodiment of a method forfreshening, prefreshening or prefetching cached objects based onoperational condition of the device or status of the connection;

FIG. 14A is a block diagram of an example embodiment of a system fordetermining expiration of a cached object responsive to refresh requestsfor the object;

FIG. 14B is a block diagram of another embodiment of a system fordetermining expiration of a cached object responsive to refresh requestsfor the object;

FIG. 14C is a block diagram of another example embodiment of a systemfor determining expiration of a cached object responsive to refreshrequests for the object;

FIG. 14D is a flow diagram of steps of an embodiment of a method fordetermining expiration of a cached object responsive to refresh requestsfor the object;

FIG. 15A is a block diagram of an example embodiment of a system forinterception caching of domain name resolution as described inconjunction with FIG. 15C;

FIG. 15B is a block diagram of an example embodiment of a system forinterception caching of domain name resolution as described inconjunction with FIG. 15C; and

FIG. 15C is a flow diagram of steps of an embodiment of a method forperforming domain name resolution interception, caching and updatingtechniques.

The features and advantages of the present invention will become moreapparent from the detailed description set forth below when taken inconjunction with the drawings, in which like reference charactersidentify corresponding elements throughout. In the drawings, likereference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar,and/or structurally similar elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

For purposes of reading the description of the various embodiments ofthe present invention below, the following descriptions of the sectionsof the specification and their respective contents may be helpful:

-   -   Section A describes a network environment and computing        environment useful for practicing an embodiment of the present        invention;    -   Section B describes embodiments of a system and appliance        architecture for accelerating delivery of a computing        environment to a remote user;    -   Section C describes embodiments of a client agent for        accelerating communications between a client and a server;    -   Section D describes embodiments of systems and methods for a        multiple-tier cache and indexing system;    -   Section E describes embodiments of systems and methods for        providing security and reliability techniques in proxying        connections;    -   Section F describes embodiments of systems and methods of        parallel revalidation of cached objects;    -   Section G describes embodiments of systems and methods of        providing speculative QoS to prefeshening/prefetching cached        objects;    -   Section H describes embodiments of systems and methods for using        a stack-oriented technique to prefetching objects for caching;    -   Section I describes embodiments of systems and methods for        prefreshening cached object;    -   Section J describes embodiments of systems and methods for        determining whether to prefetch an object based on header        information of the object requested from a server;    -   Section K describes embodiments of systems and methods for        prefetching or using non-cacheable content of dynamically        generated pages as compression history;    -   Section L describes embodiments of systems and methods for using        non-HTTP network file transfer as compression history for HTTP        based traffic;    -   Section M describes embodiments of systems and methods for        determining whether to prefetch/prefresh an object based on        operational condition of the device or a status of the        connection as described in conjunction with FIG. 13B;    -   Section N describes embodiments of systems and methods for        determining expiration of a cached object responsive to refresh        requests for the object; and    -   Section O describes embodiments of systems and methods for        Domain Name Resolution interception caching and        prefeshening/prefetching techniques for cached DNS information.        A. Network and Computing Environment

Prior to discussing the specifics of embodiments of the systems andmethods of an appliance and/or client, it may be helpful to discuss thenetwork and computing environments in which such embodiments may bedeployed. Referring now to FIG. 1A, an embodiment of a networkenvironment is depicted. In brief overview, the network environment hasone or more clients 102 a-102 n (also generally referred to as localmachine(s) 102, or client(s) 102) in communication with one or moreservers 106 a-106 n (also generally referred to as server(s) 106, orremote machine(s) 106) via one or more networks 104, 104′, 104″. In someembodiments, a client 102 communicates with a server 106 via one or morenetwork optimization appliances 200, 200′ (generally referred to asappliance 200). In one embodiment, the network optimization appliance200 is designed, configured or adapted to optimize Wide Area Network(WAN) network traffic. In some embodiments, a first appliance 200 worksin conjunction or cooperation with a second appliance 200′ to optimizenetwork traffic. For example, a first appliance 200 may be locatedbetween a branch office and a WAN connection while the second appliance200′ is located between the WAN and a corporate Local Area Network(LAN). The appliances 200 and 200′ may work together to optimize the WANrelated network traffic between a client in the branch office and aserver on the corporate LAN.

Although FIG. 1A shows a network 104, network 104′ and network 104″(generally referred to as network(s) 104) between the clients 102 andthe servers 106, the clients 102 and the servers 106 may be on the samenetwork 104. The networks 104, 104′, 104″ can be the same type ofnetwork or different types of networks. The network 104 can be alocal-area network (LAN), such as a company Intranet, a metropolitanarea network (MAN), or a wide area network (WAN), such as the Internetor the World Wide Web. The networks 104, 104′, 104″ can be a private orpublic network. In one embodiment, network 104′ or network 104″ may be aprivate network and network 104 may be a public network. In someembodiments, network 104 may be a private network and network 104′and/or network 104″ a public network. In another embodiment, networks104, 104′, 104″ may be private networks. In some embodiments, clients102 may be located at a branch office of a corporate enterprisecommunicating via a WAN connection over the network 104 to the servers106 located on a corporate LAN in a corporate data center.

The network 104 may be any type and/or form of network and may includeany of the following: a point to point network, a broadcast network, awide area network, a local area network, a telecommunications network, adata communication network, a computer network, an ATM (AsynchronousTransfer Mode) network, a SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) network, aSDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) network, a wireless network and awireline network. In some embodiments, the network 104 may comprise awireless link, such as an infrared channel or satellite band. Thetopology of the network 104 may be a bus, star, or ring networktopology. The network 104 and network topology may be of any suchnetwork or network topology as known to those ordinarily skilled in theart capable of supporting the operations described herein.

As depicted in FIG. 1A, a first network optimization appliance 200 isshown between networks 104 and 104′ and a second network optimizationappliance 200′ is also between networks 104′ and 104″. In someembodiments, the appliance 200 may be located on network 104. Forexample, a corporate enterprise may deploy an appliance 200 at thebranch office. In other embodiments, the appliance 200 may be located onnetwork 104′. In some embodiments, the appliance 200′ may be located onnetwork 104′ or network 104″. For example, an appliance 200 may belocated at a corporate data center. In one embodiment, the appliance 200and 200′ are on the same network. In another embodiment, the appliance200 and 200′ are on different networks.

In one embodiment, the appliance 200 is a device for accelerating,optimizing or otherwise improving the performance, operation, or qualityof service of any type and form of network traffic. In some embodiments,the appliance 200 is a performance enhancing proxy. In otherembodiments, the appliance 200 is any type and form of WAN optimizationor acceleration device, sometimes also referred to as a WAN optimizationcontroller. In one embodiment, the appliance 200 is any of the productembodiments referred to as WANScaler manufactured by Citrix Systems,Inc. of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. In other embodiments, the appliance 200includes any of the product embodiments referred to as BIG-IP linkcontroller and WANjet manufactured by F5 Networks, Inc. of Seattle,Wash. In another embodiment, the appliance 200 includes any of the WXand WXC WAN acceleration device platforms manufactured by JuniperNetworks, Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif. In some embodiments, the appliance200 includes any of the steelhead line of WAN optimization appliancesmanufactured by Riverbed Technology of San Francisco, Calif. In otherembodiments, the appliance 200 includes any of the WAN related devicesmanufactured by Expand Networks Inc. of Roseland, N.J. In oneembodiment, the appliance 200 includes any of the WAN related appliancesmanufactured by Packeteer Inc. of Cupertino, Calif., such as thePacketShaper, iShared, and SkyX product embodiments provided byPacketeer. In yet another embodiment, the appliance 200 includes any WANrelated appliances and/or software manufactured by Cisco Systems, Inc.of San Jose, Calif., such as the Cisco Wide Area Network ApplicationServices software and network modules, and Wide Area Network engineappliances.

In some embodiments, the appliance 200 provides application and dataacceleration services for branch-office or remote offices. In oneembodiment, the appliance 200 includes optimization of Wide Area FileServices (WAFS). In another embodiment, the appliance 200 acceleratesthe delivery of files, such as via the Common Internet File System(CIFS) protocol. In other embodiments, the appliance 200 providescaching in memory and/or storage to accelerate delivery of applicationsand data. In one embodiment, the appliance 205 provides compression ofnetwork traffic at any level of the network stack or at any protocol ornetwork layer. In another embodiment, the appliance 200 providestransport layer protocol optimizations, flow control, performanceenhancements or modifications and/or management to accelerate deliveryof applications and data over a WAN connection. For example, in oneembodiment, the appliance 200 provides Transport Control Protocol (TCP)optimizations. In other embodiments, the appliance 200 providesoptimizations, flow control, performance enhancements or modificationsand/or management for any session or application layer protocol. Furtherdetails of the optimization techniques, operations and architecture ofthe appliance 200 are discussed below in Section B.

Still referring to FIG. 1A, the network environment may includemultiple, logically-grouped servers 106. In these embodiments, thelogical group of servers may be referred to as a server farm 38. In someof these embodiments, the servers 106 may be geographically dispersed.In some cases, a farm 38 may be administered as a single entity. Inother embodiments, the server farm 38 comprises a plurality of serverfarms 38. In one embodiment, the server farm executes one or moreapplications on behalf of one or more clients 102.

The servers 106 within each farm 38 can be heterogeneous. One or more ofthe servers 106 can operate according to one type of operating systemplatform (e.g., WINDOWS NT, manufactured by Microsoft Corp. of Redmond,Wash.), while one or more of the other servers 106 can operate onaccording to another type of operating system platform (e.g., Unix orLinux). The servers 106 of each farm 38 do not need to be physicallyproximate to another server 106 in the same farm 38. Thus, the group ofservers 106 logically grouped as a farm 38 may be interconnected using awide-area network (WAN) connection or metropolitan-area network (MAN)connection. For example, a farm 38 may include servers 106 physicallylocated in different continents or different regions of a continent,country, state, city, campus, or room. Data transmission speeds betweenservers 106 in the farm 38 can be increased if the servers 106 areconnected using a local-area network (LAN) connection or some form ofdirect connection.

Servers 106 may be file servers, application servers, web servers, proxyservers, and/or gateway servers. In some embodiments, a server 106 mayhave the capacity to function as either an application server or as amaster application server. In one embodiment, a server 106 may includean Active Directory. The clients 102 may also be referred to as clientnodes or endpoints. In some embodiments, a client 102 has the capacityto function as both a client node seeking access to applications on aserver and as an application server providing access to hostedapplications for other clients 102 a-102 n.

In some embodiments, a client 102 communicates with a server 106. In oneembodiment, the client 102 communicates directly with one of the servers106 in a farm 38. In another embodiment, the client 102 executes aprogram neighborhood application to communicate with a server 106 in afarm 38. In still another embodiment, the server 106 provides thefunctionality of a master node. In some embodiments, the client 102communicates with the server 106 in the farm 38 through a network 104.Over the network 104, the client 102 can, for example, request executionof various applications hosted by the servers 106 a-106 n in the farm 38and receive output of the results of the application execution fordisplay. In some embodiments, only the master node provides thefunctionality required to identify and provide address informationassociated with a server 106′ hosting a requested application.

In one embodiment, a server 106 provides functionality of a web server.In another embodiment, the server 106 a receives requests from theclient 102, forwards the requests to a second server 106 b and respondsto the request by the client 102 with a response to the request from theserver 106 b. In still another embodiment, the server 106 acquires anenumeration of applications available to the client 102 and addressinformation associated with a server 106 hosting an applicationidentified by the enumeration of applications. In yet anotherembodiment, the server 106 presents the response to the request to theclient 102 using a web interface. In one embodiment, the client 102communicates directly with the server 106 to access the identifiedapplication. In another embodiment, the client 102 receives applicationoutput data, such as display data, generated by an execution of theidentified application on the server 106.

Deployed with Other Appliances.

Referring now to FIG. 1B, another embodiment of a network environment isdepicted in which the network optimization appliance 200 is deployedwith one or more other appliances 205, 205′ (generally referred to asappliance 205 or second appliance 205) such as a gateway, firewall oracceleration appliance. For example, in one embodiment, the appliance205 is a firewall or security appliance while appliance 205′ is a LANacceleration device. In some embodiments, a client 102 may communicateto a server 106 via one or more of the first appliances 200 and one ormore second appliances 205.

One or more appliances 200 and 205 may be located at any point in thenetwork or network communications path between a client 102 and a server106. In some embodiments, a second appliance 205 may be located on thesame network 104 as the first appliance 200. In other embodiments, thesecond appliance 205 may be located on a different network 104 as thefirst appliance 200. In yet another embodiment, a first appliance 200and second appliance 205 is on the same network, for example network104, while the first appliance 200′ and second appliance 205′ is on thesame network, such as network 104″.

In one embodiment, the second appliance 205 includes any type and formof transport control protocol or transport later terminating device,such as a gateway or firewall device. In one embodiment, the appliance205 terminates the transport control protocol by establishing a firsttransport control protocol connection with the client and a secondtransport control connection with the second appliance or server. Inanother embodiment, the appliance 205 terminates the transport controlprotocol by changing, managing or controlling the behavior of thetransport control protocol connection between the client and the serveror second appliance. For example, the appliance 205 may change, queue,forward or transmit network packets in manner to effectively terminatethe transport control protocol connection or to act or simulate asterminating the connection.

In some embodiments, the second appliance 205 is a performance enhancingproxy. In one embodiment, the appliance 205 provides a virtual privatenetwork (VPN) connection. In some embodiments, the appliance 205provides a Secure Socket Layer VPN (SSL VPN) connection. In otherembodiments, the appliance 205 provides an IPsec (Internet ProtocolSecurity) based VPN connection. In some embodiments, the appliance 205provides any one or more of the following functionality: compression,acceleration, load-balancing, switching/routing, caching, and TransportControl Protocol (TCP) acceleration.

In one embodiment, the appliance 205 is any of the product embodimentsreferred to as Access Gateway, Application Firewall, ApplicationGateway, or NetScaler manufactured by Citrix Systems, Inc. of Ft.Lauderdale, Fla. As such, in some embodiments, the appliance 205includes any logic, functions, rules, or operations to perform servicesor functionality such as SSL VPN connectivity, SSL offloading,switching/load balancing, Domain Name Service resolution, LANacceleration and an application firewall.

In some embodiments, the appliance 205 provides a SSL VPN connectionbetween a client 102 and a server 106. For example, a client 102 on afirst network 104 requests to establish a connection to a server 106 ona second network 104′. In some embodiments, the second network 104″ isnot routable from the first network 104. In other embodiments, theclient 102 is on a public network 104 and the server 106 is on a privatenetwork 104′, such as a corporate network. In one embodiment, a clientagent intercepts communications of the client 102 on the first network104, encrypts the communications, and transmits the communications via afirst transport layer connection to the appliance 205. The appliance 205associates the first transport layer connection on the first network 104to a second transport layer connection to the server 106 on the secondnetwork 104. The appliance 205 receives the intercepted communicationfrom the client agent, decrypts the communications, and transmits thecommunication to the server 106 on the second network 104 via the secondtransport layer connection. The second transport layer connection may bea pooled transport layer connection. In one embodiment, the appliance205 provides an end-to-end secure transport layer connection for theclient 102 between the two networks 104, 104′

In one embodiment, the appliance 205 hosts an intranet internet protocolor intranet IP address of the client 102 on the virtual private network104. The client 102 has a local network identifier, such as an internetprotocol (IP) address and/or host name on the first network 104. Whenconnected to the second network 104′ via the appliance 205, theappliance 205 establishes, assigns or otherwise provides an Intranet IP,which is a network identifier, such as IP address and/or host name, forthe client 102 on the second network 104′. The appliance 205 listens forand receives on the second or private network 104′ for anycommunications directed towards the client 102 using the client'sestablished Intranet IP. In one embodiment, the appliance 205 acts as oron behalf of the client 102 on the second private network 104.

In some embodiments, the appliance 205 has an encryption engineproviding logic, business rules, functions or operations for handlingthe processing of any security related protocol, such as SSL or TLS, orany function related thereto. For example, the encryption engineencrypts and decrypts network packets, or any portion thereof,communicated via the appliance 205. The encryption engine may also setupor establish SSL or TLS connections on behalf of the client 102 a-102 n,server 106 a-106 n, or appliance 200, 205. As such, the encryptionengine provides offloading and acceleration of SSL processing. In oneembodiment, the encryption engine uses a tunneling protocol to provide avirtual private network between a client 102 a-102 n and a server 106a-106 n. In some embodiments, the encryption engine uses an encryptionprocessor. In other embodiments, the encryption engine includesexecutable instructions running on an encryption processor.

In some embodiments, the appliance 205 provides one or more of thefollowing acceleration techniques to communications between the client102 and server 106: 1) compression, 2) decompression, 3) TransmissionControl Protocol pooling, 4) Transmission Control Protocol multiplexing,5) Transmission Control Protocol buffering, and 6) caching. In oneembodiment, the appliance 200 relieves servers 106 of much of theprocessing load caused by repeatedly opening and closing transportlayers connections to clients 102 by opening one or more transport layerconnections with each server 106 and maintaining these connections toallow repeated data accesses by clients via the Internet. This techniqueis referred to herein as “connection pooling”.

In some embodiments, in order to seamlessly splice communications from aclient 102 to a server 106 via a pooled transport layer connection, theappliance 205 translates or multiplexes communications by modifyingsequence number and acknowledgment numbers at the transport layerprotocol level. This is referred to as “connection multiplexing”. Insome embodiments, no application layer protocol interaction is required.For example, in the case of an in-bound packet (that is, a packetreceived from a client 102), the source network address of the packet ischanged to that of an output port of appliance 205, and the destinationnetwork address is changed to that of the intended server. In the caseof an outbound packet (that is, one received from a server 106), thesource network address is changed from that of the server 106 to that ofan output port of appliance 205 and the destination address is changedfrom that of appliance 205 to that of the requesting client 102. Thesequence numbers and acknowledgment numbers of the packet are alsotranslated to sequence numbers and acknowledgement expected by theclient 102 on the appliance's 205 transport layer connection to theclient 102. In some embodiments, the packet checksum of the transportlayer protocol is recalculated to account for these translations.

In another embodiment, the appliance 205 provides switching orload-balancing functionality for communications between the client 102and server 106. In some embodiments, the appliance 205 distributestraffic and directs client requests to a server 106 based on layer 4payload or application-layer request data. In one embodiment, althoughthe network layer or layer 2 of the network packet identifies adestination server 106, the appliance 205 determines the server 106 todistribute the network packet by application information and datacarried as payload of the transport layer packet. In one embodiment, ahealth monitoring program of the appliance 205 monitors the health ofservers to determine the server 106 for which to distribute a client'srequest. In some embodiments, if the appliance 205 detects a server 106is not available or has a load over a predetermined threshold, theappliance 205 can direct or distribute client requests to another server106.

In some embodiments, the appliance 205 acts as a Domain Name Service(DNS) resolver or otherwise provides resolution of a DNS request fromclients 102. In some embodiments, the appliance intercepts' a DNSrequest transmitted by the client 102. In one embodiment, the appliance205 responds to a client's DNS request with an IP address of or hostedby the appliance 205. In this embodiment, the client 102 transmitsnetwork communication for the domain name to the appliance 200. Inanother embodiment, the appliance 200 responds to a client's DNS requestwith an IP address of or hosted by a second appliance 200′. In someembodiments, the appliance 205 responds to a client's DNS request withan IP address of a server 106 determined by the appliance 200.

In yet another embodiment, the appliance 205 provides applicationfirewall functionality for communications between the client 102 andserver 106. In one embodiment, a policy engine 295′ provides rules fordetecting and blocking illegitimate requests. In some embodiments, theapplication firewall protects against denial of service (DoS) attacks.In other embodiments, the appliance inspects the content of interceptedrequests to identify and block application-based attacks. In someembodiments, the rules/policy engine includes one or more applicationfirewall or security control policies for providing protections againstvarious classes and types of web or Internet based vulnerabilities, suchas one or more of the following: 1) buffer overflow, 2) CGI-BINparameter manipulation, 3) form/hidden field manipulation, 4) forcefulbrowsing, 5) cookie or session poisoning, 6) broken access control list(ACLs) or weak passwords, 7) cross-site scripting (XSS), 8) commandinjection, 9) SQL injection, 10) error triggering sensitive informationleak, 11) insecure use of cryptography, 12) server misconfiguration, 13)back doors and debug options, 14) website defacement, 15) platform oroperating systems vulnerabilities, and 16) zero-day exploits. In anembodiment, the application firewall of the appliance provides HTML formfield protection in the form of inspecting or analyzing the networkcommunication for one or more of the following: 1) required fields arereturned, 2) no added field allowed, 3) read-only and hidden fieldenforcement, 4) drop-down list and radio button field conformance, and5) form-field max-length enforcement. In some embodiments, theapplication firewall of the appliance 205 ensures cookies are notmodified. In other embodiments, the appliance 205 protects againstforceful browsing by enforcing legal URLs.

In still yet other embodiments, the application firewall appliance 205protects any confidential information contained in the networkcommunication. The appliance 205 may inspect or analyze any networkcommunication in accordance with the rules or polices of the policyengine to identify any confidential information in any field of thenetwork packet. In some embodiments, the application firewall identifiesin the network communication one or more occurrences of a credit cardnumber, password, social security number, name, patient code, contactinformation, and age. The encoded portion of the network communicationmay include these occurrences or the confidential information. Based onthese occurrences, in one embodiment, the application firewall may takea policy action on the network communication, such as preventtransmission of the network communication. In another embodiment, theapplication firewall may rewrite, remove or otherwise mask suchidentified occurrence or confidential information.

Although generally referred to as a network optimization or firstappliance 200 and a second appliance 205, the first appliance 200 andsecond appliance 205 may be the same type and form of appliance. In oneembodiment, the second appliance 205 may perform the same functionality,or portion thereof, as the first appliance 200, and vice-versa. Forexample, the first appliance 200 and second appliance 205 may bothprovide acceleration techniques. In one embodiment, the first appliancemay perform LAN acceleration while the second appliance performs WANacceleration, or vice-versa. In another example, the first appliance 200may also be a transport control protocol terminating device as with thesecond appliance 205. Furthermore, although appliances 200 and 205 areshown as separate devices on the network, the appliance 200 and/or 205could be a part of any client 102 or server 106.

Referring now to FIG. 1C, other embodiments of a network environment fordeploying the appliance 200 are depicted. In another embodiment asdepicted on the top of FIG. 1C, the appliance 200 may be deployed as asingle appliance or single proxy on the network 104. For example, theappliance 200 may be designed, constructed or adapted to perform WANoptimization techniques discussed herein without a second cooperatingappliance 200′. In other embodiments as depicted on the bottom of FIG.1C, a single appliance 200 may be deployed with one or more secondappliances 205. For example, a WAN acceleration first appliance 200,such as a Citrix WANScaler appliance, may be deployed with a LANaccelerating or Application Firewall second appliance 205, such as aCitrix NetScaler appliance.

Computing Device

The client 102, server 106, and appliance 200 and 205 may be deployed asand/or executed on any type and form of computing device, such as acomputer, network device or appliance capable of communicating on anytype and form of network and performing the operations described herein.FIGS. 1C and 1D depict block diagrams of a computing device 100 usefulfor practicing an embodiment of the client 102, server 106 or appliance200. As shown in FIGS. 1C and 1D, each computing device 100 includes acentral processing unit 101, and a main memory unit 122. As shown inFIG. 1C, a computing device 100 may include a visual display device 124,a keyboard 126 and/or a pointing device 127, such as a mouse. Eachcomputing device 100 may also include additional optional elements, suchas one or more input/output devices 130 a-130 b (generally referred tousing reference numeral 130), and a cache memory 140 in communicationwith the central processing unit 101.

The central processing unit 101 is any logic circuitry that responds toand processes instructions fetched from the main memory unit 122. Inmany embodiments, the central processing unit is provided by amicroprocessor unit, such as: those manufactured by Intel Corporation ofMountain View, Calif.; those manufactured by Motorola Corporation ofSchaumburg, Ill.; those manufactured by Transmeta Corporation of SantaClara, Calif.; the RS/6000 processor, those manufactured byInternational Business Machines of White Plains, N.Y.; or thosemanufactured by Advanced Micro Devices of Sunnyvale, Calif. Thecomputing device 100 may be based on any of these processors, or anyother processor capable of operating as described herein.

Main memory unit 122 may be one or more memory chips capable of storingdata and allowing any storage location to be directly accessed by themicroprocessor 101, such as Static random access memory (SRAM), BurstSRAM or SynchBurst SRAM (BSRAM), Dynamic random access memory (DRAM),Fast Page Mode DRAM (FPM DRAM), Enhanced DRAM (EDRAM), Extended DataOutput RAM (EDO RAM), Extended Data Output DRAM (EDO DRAM), BurstExtended Data Output DRAM (BEDO DRAM), Enhanced DRAM (EDRAM),synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), JEDEC SRAM, PC100 SDRAM, Double Data RateSDRAM (DDR SDRAM), Enhanced SDRAM (ESDRAM), SyncLink DRAM (SLDRAM),Direct Rambus DRAM (DRDRAM), or Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM). The mainmemory 122 may be based on any of the above described memory chips, orany other available memory chips capable of operating as describedherein. In the embodiment shown in FIG. 1C, the processor 101communicates with main memory 122 via a system bus 150 (described inmore detail below). FIG. 1C depicts an embodiment of a computing device100 in which the processor communicates directly with main memory 122via a memory port 103. For example, in FIG. 1D the main memory 122 maybe DRDRAM.

FIG. 1D depicts an embodiment in which the main processor 101communicates directly with cache memory 140 via a secondary bus,sometimes referred to as a backside bus. In other embodiments, the mainprocessor 101 communicates with cache memory 140 using the system bus150. Cache memory 140 typically has a faster response time than mainmemory 122 and is typically provided by SRAM, BSRAM, or EDRAM. In theembodiment shown in FIG. 1C, the processor 101 communicates with variousI/O devices 130 via a local system bus 150. Various busses may be usedto connect the central processing unit 101 to any of the I/O devices130, including a VESA VL bus, an ISA bus, an EISA bus, a MicroChannelArchitecture (MCA) bus, a PCI bus, a PCI-X bus, a PCI-Express bus, or aNuBus. For embodiments in which the I/O device is a video display 124,the processor 101 may use an Advanced Graphics Port (AGP) to communicatewith the display 124. FIG. 1D depicts an embodiment of a computer 100 inwhich the main processor 101 communicates directly with I/O device 130via HyperTransport, Rapid I/O, or InfiniBand. FIG. 1D also depicts anembodiment in which local busses and direct communication are mixed: theprocessor 101 communicates with I/O device 130 using a localinterconnect bus while communicating with I/O device 130 directly.

The computing device 100 may support any suitable installation device116, such as a floppy disk drive for receiving floppy disks such as3.5-inch, 5.25-inch disks or ZIP disks, a CD-ROM drive, a CD-R/RW drive,a DVD-ROM drive, tape drives of various formats, USB device, hard-driveor any other device suitable for installing software and programs suchas any client agent 120, or portion thereof. The computing device 100may further comprise a storage device 128, such as one or more hard diskdrives or redundant arrays of independent disks, for storing anoperating system and other related software, and for storing applicationsoftware programs such as any program related to the client agent 120.Optionally, any of the installation devices 116 could also be used asthe storage device 128. Additionally, the operating system and thesoftware can be run from a bootable medium, for example, a bootable CD,such as KNOPPIX®, a bootable CD for GNU/Linux that is available as aGNU/Linux distribution from knoppix.net.

Furthermore, the computing device 100 may include a network interface118 to interface to a Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN)or the Internet through a variety of connections including, but notlimited to, standard telephone lines, LAN or WAN links (e.g., 802.11,T1, T3, 56 kb, X.25), broadband connections (e.g., ISDN, Frame Relay,ATM), wireless connections, or some combination of any or all of theabove. The network interface 118 may comprise a built-in networkadapter, network interface card, PCMCIA network card, card bus networkadapter, wireless network adapter, USB network adapter, modem or anyother device suitable for interfacing the computing device 100 to anytype of network capable of communication and performing the operationsdescribed herein. A wide variety of I/O devices 130 a-130 n may bepresent in the computing device 100. Input devices include keyboards,mice, trackpads, trackballs, microphones, and drawing tablets. Outputdevices include video displays, speakers, inkjet printers, laserprinters, and dye-sublimation printers. The I/O devices 130 may becontrolled by an I/O controller 123 as shown in FIG. 1C. The I/Ocontroller may control one or more I/O devices such as a keyboard 126and a pointing device 127, e.g., a mouse or optical pen. Furthermore, anI/O device may also provide storage 128 and/or an installation medium116 for the computing device 100. In still other embodiments, thecomputing device 100 may provide USB connections to receive handheld USBstorage devices such as the USB Flash Drive line of devices manufacturedby Twintech Industry, Inc. of Los Alamitos, Calif.

In some embodiments, the computing device 100 may comprise or beconnected to multiple display devices 124 a-124 n, which each may be ofthe same or different type and/or form. As such, any of the I/O devices130 a-130 n and/or the I/O controller 123 may comprise any type and/orform of suitable hardware, software, or combination of hardware andsoftware to support, enable or provide for the connection and use ofmultiple display devices 124 a-124 n by the computing device 100. Forexample, the computing device 100 may include any type and/or form ofvideo adapter, video card, driver, and/or library to interface,communicate, connect or otherwise use the display devices 124 a-124 n.In one embodiment, a video adapter may comprise multiple connectors tointerface to multiple display devices 124 a-124 n. In other embodiments,the computing device 100 may include multiple video adapters, with eachvideo adapter connected to one or more of the display devices 124 a-124n. In some embodiments, any portion of the operating system of thecomputing device 100 may be configured for using multiple displays 124a-124 n. In other embodiments, one or more of the display devices 124a-124 n may be provided by one or more other computing devices, such ascomputing devices 100 a and 100 b connected to the computing device 100,for example, via a network. These embodiments may include any type ofsoftware designed and constructed to use another computer's displaydevice as a second display device 124 a for the computing device 100.One ordinarily skilled in the art will recognize and appreciate thevarious ways and embodiments that a computing device 100 may beconfigured to have multiple display devices 124 a-124 n.

In further embodiments, an I/O device 130 may be a bridge 170 betweenthe system bus 150 and an external communication bus, such as a USB bus,an Apple Desktop Bus, an RS-232 serial connection, a SCSI bus, aFireWire bus, a FireWire 800 bus, an Ethernet bus, an AppleTalk bus, aGigabit Ethernet bus, an Asynchronous Transfer Mode bus, a HIPPI bus, aSuper HIPPI bus, a SerialPlus bus, a SCI/LAMP bus, a FibreChannel bus,or a Serial Attached small computer system interface bus.

A computing device 100 of the sort depicted in FIGS. 1C and 1D typicallyoperate under the control of operating systems, which control schedulingof tasks and access to system resources. The computing device 100 can berunning any operating system such as any of the versions of theMicrosoft® Windows operating systems, the different releases of the Unixand Linux operating systems, any version of the Mac OS® or OS X forMacintosh computers, any embedded operating system, any real-timeoperating system, any open source operating system, any proprietaryoperating system, any operating systems for mobile computing devices, orany other operating system capable of running on the computing deviceand performing the operations described herein. Typical operatingsystems include: WINDOWS 3.x, WINDOWS 95, WINDOWS 98, WINDOWS 2000,WINDOWS NT 3.51, WINDOWS NT 4.0, WINDOWS CE, WINDOWS 2003, WINDOWS XP,and WINDOWS VISTA all of which are manufactured by Microsoft Corporationof Redmond, Wash.; MacOS and OS X, manufactured by Apple Computer ofCupertino, Calif.; OS/2, manufactured by International Business Machinesof Armonk, N.Y.; and Linux, a freely-available operating systemdistributed by Caldera Corp. of Salt Lake City, Utah, or any type and/orform of a Unix operating system, (such as those versions of Unixreferred to as Solaris/Sparc, Solaris/x86, AIX IBM, HP UX, and SGI(Silicon Graphics)), among others.

In other embodiments, the computing device 100 may have differentprocessors, operating systems, and input devices consistent with thedevice. For example, in one embodiment the computer 100 is a Treo 180,270, 1060, 600 or 650 smart phone manufactured by Palm, Inc. In thisembodiment, the Treo smart phone is operated under the control of thePalmOS operating system and includes a stylus input device as well as afive-way navigator device. In another example, the computing device 100may be a WinCE or PocketPC device with an ARM (Advanced RISC Machine)type of processor. In one example, the computing device 100 includes aSeries 80 (Nokia 9500 or Nokia 9300) type of smart phone manufactured byNokia of Finland, which may run the Symbian OS or EPOC mobile operatingsystem manufactured by Symbian Software Limited of London, UnitedKingdom. In another example, the computing device 100 may include a FOMAM100 brand smart phone manufactured by Motorola, Inc. of Schaumburg,Ill., and operating the EPOC or Symbian OS operating system. In yetanother example, the computing device 100 includes a Sony Ericsson P800,P900 or P910 Alpha model phone manufactured by Sony Ericsson MobileCommunications (USA) Inc. of Research Triangle Park, N.C. Moreover, thecomputing device 100 can be any workstation, desktop computer, laptop ornotebook computer, server, handheld computer, mobile telephone, smartphone, any other computer, or other form of computing ortelecommunications device that is capable of communication and that hassufficient processor power and memory capacity to perform the operationsdescribed herein.

B. System and Appliance Architecture

Referring now to FIG. 2A, an embodiment of a system environment andarchitecture of an appliance 200 for delivering and/or operating acomputing environment on a client is depicted. In some embodiments, aserver 106 includes an application delivery system 290 for delivering acomputing environment or an application and/or data file to one or moreclients 102. In brief overview, a client 102 is in communication with aserver 106 via network 104 and appliance 200. For example, the client102 may reside in a remote office of a company, e.g., a branch office,and the server 106 may reside at a corporate data center. The client 102has a client agent 120, and a computing environment 215. The computingenvironment 215 may execute or operate an application that accesses,processes or uses a data file. The computing environment 215,application and/or data file may be delivered via the appliance 200and/or the server 106.

In some embodiments, the appliance 200 accelerates delivery of acomputing environment 215, or any portion thereof, to a client 102. Inone embodiment, the appliance 200 accelerates the delivery of thecomputing environment 215 by the application delivery system 290. Forexample, the embodiments described herein may be used to acceleratedelivery of a streaming application and data file processable by theapplication from a central corporate data center to a remote userlocation, such as a branch office of the company. In another embodiment,the appliance 200 accelerates transport layer traffic between a client102 and a server 106. In another embodiment, the appliance 200 controls,manages, or adjusts the transport layer protocol to accelerate deliveryof the computing environment. In some embodiments, the appliance 200uses caching and/or compression techniques to accelerate delivery of acomputing environment.

In some embodiments, the application delivery management system 290provides application delivery techniques to deliver a computingenvironment to a desktop of a user, remote or otherwise, based on aplurality of execution methods and based on any authentication andauthorization policies applied via a policy engine 295. With thesetechniques, a remote user may obtain a computing environment and accessto server stored applications and data files from any network connecteddevice 100. In one embodiment, the application delivery system 290 mayreside or execute on a server 106. In another embodiment, theapplication delivery system 290 may reside or execute on a plurality ofservers 106 a-106 n. In some embodiments, the application deliverysystem 290 may execute in a server farm 38. In one embodiment, theserver 106 executing the application delivery system 290 may also storeor provide the application and data file. In another embodiment, a firstset of one or more servers 106 may execute the application deliverysystem 290, and a different server 106 n may store or provide theapplication and data file. In some embodiments, each of the applicationdelivery system 290, the application, and data file may reside or belocated on different servers. In yet another embodiment, any portion ofthe application delivery system 290 may reside, execute or be stored onor distributed to the appliance 200, or a plurality of appliances.

The client 102 may include a computing environment 215 for executing anapplication that uses or processes a data file. The client 102 vianetworks 104, 104′ and appliance 200 may request an application and datafile from the server 106. In one embodiment, the appliance 200 mayforward a request from the client 102 to the server 106. For example,the client 102 may not have the application and data file stored oraccessible locally. In response to the request, the application deliverysystem 290 and/or server 106 may deliver the application and data fileto the client 102. For example, in one embodiment, the server 106 maytransmit the application as an application stream to operate incomputing environment 215 on client 102.

In some embodiments, the application delivery system 290 comprises anyportion of the Citrix Access Suite™ by Citrix Systems, Inc., such as theMetaFrame or Citrix Presentation Server™ and/or any of the Microsoft®Windows Terminal Services manufactured by the Microsoft Corporation. Inone embodiment, the application delivery system 290 may deliver one ormore applications to clients 102 or users via a remote-display protocolor otherwise via remote-based or server-based computing. In anotherembodiment, the application delivery system 290 may deliver one or moreapplications to clients or users via steaming of the application.

In one embodiment, the application delivery system 290 includes a policyengine 295 for controlling and managing the access to applications,selection of application execution methods and the delivery ofapplications. In some embodiments, the policy engine 295 determines theone or more applications a user or client 102 may access. In anotherembodiment, the policy engine 295 determines how the application shouldbe delivered to the user or client 102, e.g., the method of execution.In some embodiments, the application delivery system 290 provides aplurality of delivery techniques from which to select a method ofapplication execution, such as a server-based computing, streaming ordelivering the application locally to the client 120 for localexecution.

In one embodiment, a client 102 requests execution of an applicationprogram and the application delivery system 290 comprising a server 106selects a method of executing the application program. In someembodiments, the server 106 receives credentials from the client 102. Inanother embodiment, the server 106 receives a request for an enumerationof available applications from the client 102. In one embodiment, inresponse to the request or receipt of credentials, the applicationdelivery system 290 enumerates a plurality of application programsavailable to the client 102. The application delivery system 290receives a request to execute an enumerated application. The applicationdelivery system 290 selects one of a predetermined number of methods forexecuting the enumerated application, for example, responsive to apolicy of a policy engine. The application delivery system 290 mayselect a method of execution of the application enabling the client 102to receive application-output data generated by execution of theapplication program on a server 106. The application delivery system 290may select a method of execution of the application enabling the clientor local machine 102 to execute the application program locally afterretrieving a plurality of application files comprising the application.In yet another embodiment, the application delivery system 290 mayselect a method of execution of the application to stream theapplication via the network 104 to the client 102.

A client 102 may execute, operate or otherwise provide an application,which can be any type and/or form of software, program, or executableinstructions such as any type and/or form of web browser, web-basedclient, client-server application, a thin-client computing client, anActiveX control, or a Java applet, or any other type and/or form ofexecutable instructions capable of executing on client 102. In someembodiments, the application may be a server-based or a remote-basedapplication executed on behalf of the client 102 on a server 106. In oneembodiment the server 106 may display output to the client 102 using anythin-client or remote-display protocol, such as the IndependentComputing Architecture (ICA) protocol manufactured by Citrix Systems,Inc. of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. or the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)manufactured by the Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. Theapplication can use any type of protocol and it can be, for example, anHTTP client, an FTP client, an Oscar client, or a Telnet client. Inother embodiments, the application comprises any type of softwarerelated to VoIP communications, such as a soft IP telephone. In furtherembodiments, the application comprises any application related toreal-time data communications, such as applications for streaming videoand/or audio.

In some embodiments, the server 106 or a server farm 38 may be runningone or more applications, such as an application providing a thin-clientcomputing or remote display presentation application. In one embodiment,the server 106 or server farm 38 executes, as an application, anyportion of the Citrix Access Suite™ by Citrix Systems, Inc., such as theMetaFrame or Citrix Presentation Server™, and/or any of the Microsoft®Windows Terminal Services manufactured by the Microsoft Corporation. Inone embodiment, the application is an ICA client, developed by CitrixSystems, Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. In other embodiments, theapplication includes a Remote Desktop (RDP) client, developed byMicrosoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. Also, the server 106 may run anapplication, which for example, may be an application server providingemail services such as Microsoft Exchange manufactured by the MicrosoftCorporation of Redmond, Wash., a web or Internet server, or a desktopsharing server, or a collaboration server. In some embodiments, any ofthe applications may comprise any type of hosted service or products,such as GoToMeeting™ provided by Citrix Online Division, Inc. of SantaBarbara, Calif., WebEX™ provided by WebEx, Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif.,or Microsoft Office Live Meeting provided by Microsoft Corporation ofRedmond, Wash.

Example Appliance Architecture

FIG. 2A also illustrates an example embodiment of the appliance 200. Thearchitecture of the appliance 200 in FIG. 2A is provided by way ofillustration only and is not intended to be limiting in any manner. Theappliance 200 may include any type and form of computing device 100,such as any element or portion described in conjunction with FIGS. 1Dand 1E above. In brief overview, the appliance 200 has one or morenetwork ports 266A-226N and one or more networks stacks 267A-267N forreceiving and/or transmitting communications via networks 104. Theappliance 200 also has a network optimization engine 250 for optimizing,accelerating or otherwise improving the performance, operation, orquality of any network traffic or communications traversing theappliance 200.

The appliance 200 includes or is under the control of an operatingsystem. The operating system of the appliance 200 may be any type and/orform of UNIX operating system although the invention is not so limited.As such, the appliance 200 can be running any operating system such asany of the versions of the Microsoft® Windows operating systems, thedifferent releases of the Unix and Linux operating systems, any versionof the Mac OS® for Macintosh computers, any embedded operating system,any network operating system, any real-time operating system, any opensource operating system, any proprietary operating system, any operatingsystems for mobile computing devices or network devices, or any otheroperating system capable of running on the appliance 200 and performingthe operations described herein.

The operating system of appliance 200 allocates, manages, or otherwisesegregates the available system memory into what is referred to askernel or system space, and user or application space. The kernel spaceis typically reserved for running the kernel, including any devicedrivers, kernel extensions or other kernel related software. As known tothose skilled in the art, the kernel is the core of the operatingsystem, and provides access, control, and management of resources andhardware-related elements of the appliance 200. In accordance with anembodiment of the appliance 200, the kernel space also includes a numberof network services or processes working in conjunction with the networkoptimization engine 250, or any portion thereof. Additionally, theembodiment of the kernel will depend on the embodiment of the operatingsystem installed, configured, or otherwise used by the device 200. Incontrast to kernel space, user space is the memory area or portion ofthe operating system used by user mode applications or programsotherwise running in user mode. A user mode application may not accesskernel space directly and uses service calls in order to access kernelservices. The operating system uses the user or application space forexecuting or running applications and provisioning of user levelprograms, services, processes and/or tasks.

The appliance 200 has one or more network ports 266 for transmitting andreceiving data over a network 104. The network port 266 provides aphysical and/or logical interface between the computing device and anetwork 104 or another device 100 for transmitting and receiving networkcommunications. The type and form of network port 266 depends on thetype and form of network and type of medium for connecting to thenetwork. Furthermore, any software of, provisioned for or used by thenetwork port 266 and network stack 267 may run in either kernel space oruser space.

In one embodiment, the appliance 200 has one network stack 267, such asa TCP/IP based stack, for communicating on a network 105, such with theclient 102 and/or the server 106. In one embodiment, the network stack267 is used to communicate with a first network, such as network 104,and also with a second network 104′. In another embodiment, theappliance 200 has two or more network stacks, such as first networkstack 267A and a second network stack 267N. The first network stack 267Amay be used in conjunction with a first port 266A to communicate on afirst network 104. The second network stack 267N may be used inconjunction with a second port 266N to communicate on a second network104′. In one embodiment, the network stack(s) 267 has one or morebuffers for queuing one or more network packets for transmission by theappliance 200.

The network stack 267 includes any type and form of software, orhardware, or any combinations thereof, for providing connectivity to andcommunications with a network. In one embodiment, the network stack 267includes a software implementation for a network protocol suite. Thenetwork stack 267 may have one or more network layers, such as anynetworks layers of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) communicationsmodel as those skilled in the art recognize and appreciate. As such, thenetwork stack 267 may have any type and form of protocols for any of thefollowing layers of the OSI model: 1) physical link layer, 2) data linklayer, 3) network layer, 4) transport layer, 5) session layer, 6)presentation layer, and 7) application layer. In one embodiment, thenetwork stack 267 includes a transport control protocol (TCP) over thenetwork layer protocol of the internet protocol (IP), generally referredto as TCP/IP. In some embodiments, the TCP/IP protocol may be carriedover the Ethernet protocol, which may comprise any of the family of IEEEwide-area-network (WAN) or local-area-network (LAN) protocols, such asthose protocols covered by the IEEE 802.3. In some embodiments, thenetwork stack 267 has any type and form of a wireless protocol, such asIEEE 802.11 and/or mobile internet protocol.

In view of a TCP/IP based network, any TCP/IP based protocol may beused, including Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI)(email), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), HyperText Transfer Protocol(HTTP), Common Internet File System (CIFS) protocol (file transfer),Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) protocol, Remote DesktopProtocol (RDP), Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), Mobile IP protocol,and Voice Over IP (VoIP) protocol. In another embodiment, the networkstack 267 comprises any type and form of transport control protocol,such as a modified transport control protocol, for example a TransactionTCP (T/TCP), TCP with selection acknowledgements (TCP-SACK), TCP withlarge windows (TCP-LW), a congestion prediction protocol such as theTCP-Vegas protocol, and a TCP spoofing protocol. In other embodiments,any type and form of user datagram protocol (UDP), such as UDP over IP,may be used by the network stack 267, such as for voice communicationsor real-time data communications.

Furthermore, the network stack 267 may include one or more networkdrivers supporting the one or more layers, such as a TCP driver or anetwork layer driver. The network drivers may be included as part of theoperating system of the computing device 100 or as part of any networkinterface cards or other network access components of the computingdevice 100. In some embodiments, any of the network drivers of thenetwork stack 267 may be customized, modified or adapted to provide acustom or modified portion of the network stack 267 in support of any ofthe techniques described herein.

In one embodiment, the appliance 200 provides for or maintains atransport layer connection between a client 102 and server 106 using asingle network stack 267. In some embodiments, the appliance 200effectively terminates the transport layer connection by changing,managing or controlling the behavior of the transport control protocolconnection between the client and the server. In these embodiments, theappliance 200 may use a single network stack 267. In other embodiments,the appliance 200 terminates a first transport layer connection, such asa TCP connection of a client 102, and establishes a second transportlayer connection to a server 106 for use by or on behalf of the client102, e.g., the second transport layer connection is terminated at theappliance 200 and the server 106. The first and second transport layerconnections may be established via a single network stack 267. In otherembodiments, the appliance 200 may use multiple network stacks, forexample 267A and 267N. In these embodiments, the first transport layerconnection may be established or terminated at one network stack 267A,and the second transport layer connection may be established orterminated on the second network stack 267N. For example, one networkstack may be for receiving and transmitting network packets on a firstnetwork, and another network stack for receiving and transmittingnetwork packets on a second network.

As shown in FIG. 2A, the network optimization engine 250 includes one ormore of the following elements, components or modules: network packetprocessing engine 240, LAN/WAN detector 210, flow controller 220, QoSengine 236, protocol accelerator 234, the compression engine 238, cachemanager 232 and policy engine 295′. The network optimization engine 250,or any portion thereof, may include software, hardware or anycombination of software and hardware. Furthermore, any software of,provisioned for or used by the network optimization engine 250 may runin either kernel space or user space. For example, in one embodiment,the network optimization engine 250 may run in kernel space. In anotherembodiment, the network optimization engine 250 may run in user space.In yet another embodiment, a first portion of the network optimizationengine 250 runs in kernel space while a second portion of the networkoptimization engine 250 runs in user space.

Network Packet Processing Engine

The network packet engine 240, also generally referred to as a packetprocessing engine or packet engine, is responsible for controlling andmanaging the processing of packets received and transmitted by appliance200 via network ports 266 and network stack(s) 267. The network packetengine 240 may operate at any layer of the network stack 267. In oneembodiment, the network packet engine 240 operates at layer 2 or layer 3of the network stack 267. In some embodiments, the packet engine 240intercepts or otherwise receives packets at the network layer, such asthe IP layer in a TCP/IP embodiment. In another embodiment, the packetengine 240 operates at layer 4 of the network stack 267. For example, insome embodiments, the packet engine 240 intercepts or otherwise receivespackets at the transport layer, such as intercepting packets as the TCPlayer in a TCP/IP embodiment. In other embodiments, the packet engine240 operates at any session or application layer above layer 4. Forexample, in one embodiment, the packet engine 240 intercepts orotherwise receives network packets above the transport layer protocollayer, such as the payload of a TCP packet in a TCP embodiment.

The packet engine 240 may include a buffer for queuing one or morenetwork packets during processing, such as for receipt of a networkpacket or transmission of a network packet. Additionally, the packetengine 240 is in communication with one or more network stacks 267 tosend and receive network packets via network ports 266. The packetengine 240 may include a packet processing timer. In one embodiment, thepacket processing timer provides one or more time intervals to triggerthe processing of incoming, i.e., received, or outgoing, i.e.,transmitted, network packets. In some embodiments, the packet engine 240processes network packets responsive to the timer. The packet processingtimer provides any type and form of signal to the packet engine 240 tonotify, trigger, or communicate a time related event, interval oroccurrence. In many embodiments, the packet processing timer operates inthe order of milliseconds, such as for example 100 ms, 50 ms, 25 ms, 10ms, 5 ms or 1 ms.

During operations, the packet engine 240 may be interfaced, integratedor be in communication with any portion of the network optimizationengine 250, such as the LAN/WAN detector 210, flow controller 220, QoSengine 236, protocol accelerator 234, the compression engine 238, cachemanager 232 and/or policy engine 295′. As such, any of the logic,functions, or operations of the LAN/WAN detector 210, flow controller220, QoS engine 236, protocol accelerator 234, the compression engine238, cache manager 232 and policy engine 295′ may be performedresponsive to the packet processing timer and/or the packet engine 240.In some embodiments, any of the logic, functions, or operations of theencryption engine 234, cache manager 232, policy engine 236 andmulti-protocol compression logic 238 may be performed at the granularityof time intervals provided via the packet processing timer, for example,at a time interval of less than or equal to 10 ms. For example, in oneembodiment, the cache manager 232 may perform expiration of any cachedobjects responsive to the integrated packet engine 240 and/or the packetprocessing timer 242. In another embodiment, the expiry or invalidationtime of a cached object can be set to the same order of granularity asthe time interval of the packet processing timer, such as at every 10ms.

Cache Manager

The cache manager 232 may include software, hardware or any combinationof software and hardware to store data, information and objects to acache in memory or storage, provide cache access, and control and managethe cache. The data, objects or content processed and stored by thecache manager 232 may include data in any format, such as a markuplanguage, or any type of data communicated via any protocol. In someembodiments, the cache manager 232 duplicates original data storedelsewhere or data previously computed, generated or transmitted, inwhich the original data may require longer access time to fetch, computeor otherwise obtain relative to reading a cache memory or storageelement. Once the data is stored in the cache, future use can be made byaccessing the cached copy rather than refetching or recomputing theoriginal data, thereby reducing the access time. In some embodiments,the cache may comprise a data object in memory of the appliance 200. Inanother embodiment, the cache may comprise any type and form of storageelement of the appliance 200, such as a portion of a hard disk. In someembodiments, the processing unit of the device may provide cache memoryfor use by the cache manager 232. In yet further embodiments, the cachemanager 232 may use any portion and combination of memory, storage, orthe processing unit for caching data, objects, and other content.

Furthermore, the cache manager 232 includes any logic, functions, rules,or operations to perform any caching techniques of the appliance 200. Insome embodiments, the cache manager 232 may operate as an application,library, program, service, process, thread or task. In some embodiments,the cache manager 232 can comprise any type of general purpose processor(GPP), or any other type of integrated circuit, such as a FieldProgrammable Gate Array (FPGA), Programmable Logic Device (PLD), orApplication Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC).

Policy Engine

The policy engine 295′ includes any logic, function or operations forproviding and applying one or more policies or rules to the function,operation or configuration of any portion of the appliance 200. Thepolicy engine 295′ may include, for example, an intelligent statisticalengine or other programmable application(s). In one embodiment, thepolicy engine 295 provides a configuration mechanism to allow a user toidentify, specify, define or configure a policy for the networkoptimization engine 250, or any portion thereof. For example, the policyengine 295 may provide policies for what data to cache, when to cachethe data, for whom to cache the data, when to expire an object in cacheor refresh the cache. In other embodiments, the policy engine 236 mayinclude any logic, rules, functions or operations to determine andprovide access, control and management of objects, data or content beingcached by the appliance 200 in addition to access, control andmanagement of security, network traffic, network access, the compressionor any other function or operation performed by the appliance 200.

In some embodiments, the policy engine 295′ provides and applies one ormore policies based on any one or more of the following: a user,identification of the client, identification of the server, the type ofconnection, the time of the connection, the type of network, or thecontents of the network traffic. In one embodiment, the policy engine295′ provides and applies a policy based on any field or header at anyprotocol layer of a network packet. In another embodiment, the policyengine 295′ provides and applies a policy based on any payload of anetwork packet. For example, in one embodiment, the policy engine 295′applies a policy based on identifying a certain portion of content of anapplication layer protocol carried as a payload of a transport layerpacket. In another example, the policy engine 295′ applies a policybased on any information identified by a client, server or usercertificate. In yet another embodiment, the policy engine 295′ applies apolicy based on any attributes or characteristics obtained about aclient 102, such as via any type and form of endpoint detection (see forexample the collection agent of the client agent discussed below).

In one embodiment, the policy engine 295′ works in conjunction orcooperation with the policy engine 295 of the application deliverysystem 290. In some embodiments, the policy engine 295′ is a distributedportion of the policy engine 295 of the application delivery system 290.In another embodiment, the policy engine 295 of the application deliverysystem 290 is deployed on or executed on the appliance 200. In someembodiments, the policy engines 295, 295′ both operate on the appliance200. In yet another embodiment, the policy engine 295′, or a portionthereof, of the appliance 200 operates on a server 106.

Multi-Protocol and Multi-Layer Compression Engine

The compression engine 238 includes any logic, business rules, functionor operations for compressing one or more protocols of a network packet,such as any of the protocols used by the network stack 267 of theappliance 200. The compression engine 238 may also be referred to as amulti-protocol compression engine 238 in that it may be designed,constructed or capable of compressing a plurality of protocols. In oneembodiment, the compression engine 238 applies context insensitivecompression, which is compression applied to data without knowledge ofthe type of data. In another embodiment, the compression engine 238applies context-sensitive compression. In this embodiment, thecompression engine 238 utilizes knowledge of the data type to select aspecific compression algorithm from a suite of suitable algorithms. Insome embodiments, knowledge of the specific protocol is used to performcontext-sensitive compression. In one embodiment, the appliance 200 orcompression engine 238 can use port numbers (e.g., well-known ports), aswell as data from the connection itself to determine the appropriatecompression algorithm to use. Some protocols use only a single type ofdata, requiring only a single compression algorithm that can be selectedwhen the connection is established. Other protocols contain differenttypes of data at different times. For example, POP, IMAP, SMTP, and HTTPall move files of arbitrary types interspersed with other protocol data.

In one embodiment, the compression engine 238 uses a delta-typecompression algorithm. In another embodiment, the compression engine 238uses first site compression as well as searching for repeated patternsamong data stored in cache, memory or disk. In some embodiments, thecompression engine 238 uses a lossless compression algorithm. In otherembodiments, the compression engine uses a lossy compression algorithm.In some cases, knowledge of the data type and, sometimes, permissionfrom the user are required to use a lossy compression algorithm. In someembodiments, the compression is not limited to the protocol payload. Thecontrol fields of the protocol itself may be compressed. In someembodiments, the compression engine 238 uses a different algorithm forcontrol fields than that used for the payload.

In some embodiments, the compression engine 238 compresses at one ormore layers of the network stack 267. In one embodiment, the compressionengine 238 compresses at a transport layer protocol. In anotherembodiment, the compression engine 238 compresses at an applicationlayer protocol. In some embodiments, the compression engine 238compresses at a layer 2-4 protocol. In other embodiments, thecompression engine 238 compresses at a layer 5-7 protocol. In yetanother embodiment, the compression engine compresses a transport layerprotocol and an application layer protocol. In some embodiments, thecompression engine 238 compresses a layer 2-4 protocol and a layer 5-7protocol.

In some embodiments, the compression engine 238 uses memory-basedcompression, cache-based compression or disk-based compression or anycombination thereof. As such, the compression engine 238 may be referredto as a multi-layer compression engine. In one embodiment, thecompression engine 238 uses a history of data stored in memory, such asRAM. In another embodiment, the compression engine 238 uses a history ofdata stored in a cache, such as L2 cache of the processor. In otherembodiments, the compression engine 238 uses a history of data stored toa disk or storage location. In some embodiments, the compression engine238 uses a hierarchy of cache-based, memory-based and disk-based datahistory. The compression engine 238 may first use the cache-based datato determine one or more data matches for compression, and then maycheck the memory-based data to determine one or more data matches forcompression. In another case, the compression engine 238 may check diskstorage for data matches for compression after checking either thecache-based and/or memory-based data history.

In one embodiment, multi-protocol compression engine 238 compressesbi-directionally between clients 102 a-102 n and servers 106 a-106 n anyTCP/IP based protocol, including Messaging Application ProgrammingInterface (MAPI) (email), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), HyperTextTransfer Protocol (HTTP), Common Internet File System (CIFS) protocol(file transfer), Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) protocol,Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), Wireless Application Protocol (WAP),Mobile IP protocol, and Voice Over IP (VoIP) protocol. In otherembodiments, multi-protocol compression engine 238 provides compressionof HyperText Markup Language (HTML) based protocols and in someembodiments, provides compression of any markup languages, such as theExtensible Markup Language (XML). In one embodiment, the multi-protocolcompression engine 238 provides compression of any high-performanceprotocol, such as any protocol designed for appliance 200 to appliance200 communications. In another embodiment, the multi-protocolcompression engine 238 compresses any payload of or any communicationusing a modified transport control protocol, such as Transaction TCP(T/TCP), TCP with selection acknowledgements (TCP-SACK), TCP with largewindows (TCP-LW), a congestion prediction protocol such as the TCP-Vegasprotocol, and a TCP spoofing protocol.

As such, the multi-protocol compression engine 238 may accelerateperformance for users accessing applications via desktop clients, e.g.,Microsoft Outlook and non-Web thin clients, such as any client launchedby popular enterprise applications like Oracle, SAP and Siebel, and evenmobile clients, such as the Pocket PC. In some embodiments, themulti-protocol compression engine by integrating with packet processingengine 240 accessing the network stack 267 is able to compress any ofthe protocols carried by a transport layer protocol, such as anyapplication layer protocol.

LAN/WAN Detector

The LAN/WAN detector 238 includes any logic, business rules, function oroperations for automatically detecting a slow side connection (e.g., awide area network (WAN) connection such as an Intranet) and associatedport 267, and a fast side connection (e.g., a local area network (LAN)connection) and an associated port 267. In some embodiments, the LAN/WANdetector 238 monitors network traffic on the network ports 267 of theappliance 200 to detect a synchronization packet, sometimes referred toas a “tagged” network packet. The synchronization packet identifies atype or speed of the network traffic. In one embodiment, thesynchronization packet identifies a WAN speed or WAN type connection.The LAN/WAN detector 238 also identifies receipt of an acknowledgementpacket to a tagged synchronization packet and on which port it isreceived. The appliance 200 then configures itself to operate theidentified port on which the tagged synchronization packet arrived sothat the speed on that port is set to be the speed associated with thenetwork connected to that port. The other port is then set to the speedassociated with the network connected to that port.

For ease of discussion herein, reference to “slow” side will be madewith respect to connection with a wide area network (WAN), e.g., theInternet, and operating at a network speed of the WAN. Likewise,reference to “fast” side will be made with respect to connection with alocal area network (LAN) and operating at a network speed the LAN.However, it is noted that “fast” and “slow” sides in a network canchange on a per-connection basis and are relative terms to the speed ofthe network connections or to the type of network topology. Suchconfigurations are useful in complex network topologies, where a networkis “fast” or “slow” only when compared to adjacent networks and not inany absolute sense.

In one embodiment, the LAN/WAN detector 238 may be used to allow forauto-discovery by an appliance 200 of a network to which it connects. Inanother embodiment, the LAN/WAN detector 238 may be used to detect theexistence or presence of a second appliance 200′ deployed in the network104. For example, an auto-discovery mechanism in operation in accordancewith FIG. 1A functions as follows: appliance 200 and 200′ are placed inline with the connection linking client 102 and server 106. Theappliances 200 and 200′ are at the ends of a low-speed link, e.g.,Internet, connecting two LANs. In one example embodiment, appliances 200and 200′ each include two ports--one to connect with the “lower” speedlink and the other to connect with a “higher” speed link, e.g., a LAN.Any packet arriving at one port is copied to the other port. Thus,appliance 200 and 200′ are each configured to function as a bridgebetween the two networks 104.

When an end node, such as the client 102, opens a new TCP connectionwith another end node, such as the server 106, the client 102 sends aTCP packet with a synchronization (SYN) header bit set, or a SYN packet,to the server 106. In the present example, client 102 opens a transportlayer connection to server 106. When the SYN packet passes throughappliance 200, the appliance 200 inserts, attaches or otherwise providesa characteristic TCP header option to the packet, which announces itspresence. If the packet passes through a second appliance, in thisexample appliance 200′ the second appliance notes the header option onthe SYN packet. The server 106 responds to the SYN packet with asynchronization acknowledgment (SYN-ACK) packet. When the SYN-ACK packetpasses through appliance 200′, a TCP header option is tagged (e.g.,attached, inserted or added) to the SYN-ACK packet to announce appliance200′ presence to appliance 200. When appliance 200 receives this packet,both appliances 200, 200′ are now aware of each other and the connectioncan be appropriately accelerated.

Further to the operations of the LAN/WAN detector 238, a method orprocess for detecting “fast” and “slow” sides of a network using a SYNpacket is described. During a transport layer connection establishmentbetween a client 102 and a server 106, the appliance 200 via the LAN/WANdetector 238 determines whether the SYN packet is tagged with anacknowledgement (ACK). If it is tagged, the appliance 200 identifies orconfigures the port receiving the tagged SYN packet (SYN-ACK) as the“slow” side. In one embodiment, the appliance 200 optionally removes theACK tag from the packet before copying the packet to the other port. Ifthe LAN/WAN detector 238 determines that the packet is not tagged, theappliance 200 identifies or configures the port receiving the untaggedpacket as the “fast” side. The appliance 200 then tags the SYN packetwith an ACK and copies the packet to the other port.

In another embodiment, the LAN/WAN detector 238 detects fast and slowsides of a network using a SYN-ACK packet. The appliance 200 via theLAN/WAN detector 238 determines whether the SYN-ACK packet is taggedwith an acknowledgement (ACK). If it is tagged, the appliance 200identifies or configures the port receiving the tagged SYN packet(SYN-ACK) as the “slow” side. In one embodiment, the appliance 200optionally removes the ACK tag from the packet before copying the packetto the other port. If the LAN/WAN detector 238 determines that thepacket is not tagged, the appliance 200 identifies or configures theport receiving the untagged packet as the “fast” side. The LAN/WANdetector 238 determines whether the SYN packet was tagged. If the SYNpacket was not tagged, the appliance 200 copied the packet to the otherport. If the SYN packet was tagged, the appliance tags the SYN-ACKpacket before copying it to the other port.

The appliance 200, 200′ may add, insert, modify, attach or otherwiseprovide any information or data in the TCP option header to provide anyinformation, data or characteristics about the network connection,network traffic flow, or the configuration or operation of the appliance200. In this manner, not only does an appliance 200 announce itspresence to another appliance 200′ or tag a higher or lower speedconnection, the appliance 200 provides additional information and datavia the TCP option headers about the appliance or the connection. TheTCP option header information may be useful to or used by an appliancein controlling, managing, optimizing, acceleration or improving thenetwork traffic flow traversing the appliance 200, or to otherwiseconfigure itself or operation of a network port.

Although generally described in conjunction with detecting speeds ofnetwork connections or the presence of appliances, the LAN/WAN detector238 can be used for applying any type of function, logic or operation ofthe appliance 200 to a port, connection or flow of network traffic. Inparticular, automated assignment of ports can occur whenever a deviceperforms different functions on different ports, where the assignment ofa port to a task can be made during the unit's operation, and/or thenature of the network segment on each port is discoverable by theappliance 200.

Flow Control

The flow controller 220 includes any logic, business rules, function oroperations for optimizing, accelerating or otherwise improving theperformance, operation or quality of service of transport layercommunications of network packets or the delivery of packets at thetransport layer. A flow controller, also sometimes referred to as a flowcontrol module, regulates, manages and controls data transfer rates. Insome embodiments, the flow controller 220 is deployed at or connected ata bandwidth bottleneck in the network 104. In one embodiment, the flowcontroller 220 effectively regulates, manages and controls bandwidthusage or utilization. In other embodiments, the flow control modules mayalso be deployed at points on the network of latency transitions (lowlatency to high latency) and on links with media losses (such aswireless or satellite links).

In some embodiments, a flow controller 220 may include a receiver-sideflow control module for controlling the rate of receipt of networktransmissions and a sender-side flow control module for the controllingthe rate of transmissions of network packets. In other embodiments, afirst flow controller 220 includes a receiver-side flow control moduleand a second flow controller 220′ includes a sender-side flow controlmodule. In some embodiments, a first flow controller 220 is deployed ona first appliance 200 and a second flow controller 220′ is deployed on asecond appliance 200′. As such, in some embodiments, a first appliance200 controls the flow of data on the receiver side and a secondappliance 200′ controls the data flow from the sender side. In yetanother embodiment, a single appliance 200 includes flow control forboth the receiver-side and sender-side of network communicationstraversing the appliance 200.

In one embodiment, a flow control module 220 is configured to allowbandwidth at the bottleneck to be more fully utilized, and in someembodiments, not overutilized. In some embodiments, the flow controlmodule 220 transparently buffers (or rebuffers data already buffered by,for example, the sender) network sessions that pass between nodes havingassociated flow control modules 220. When a session passes through twoor more flow control modules 220, one or more of the flow controlmodules controls a rate of the session(s).

In one embodiment, the flow control module 200 is configured withpredetermined data relating to bottleneck bandwidth. In anotherembodiment, the flow control module 220 may be configured to detect thebottleneck bandwidth or data associated therewith. A receiver-side flowcontrol module 220 may control the data transmission rate. Thereceiver-side flow control module controls 220 the sender-side flowcontrol module, e.g., 220, data transmission rate by forwardingtransmission rate limits to the sender-side flow control module 220. Inone embodiment, the receiver-side flow control module 220 piggybacksthese transmission rate limits on acknowledgement (ACK) packets (orsignals) sent to the sender, e.g., client 102, by the receiver, e.g.,server 106. The receiver-side flow control module 220 does this inresponse to rate control requests that are sent by the sender side flowcontrol module 220′. The requests from the sender-side flow controlmodule 220′ may be “piggybacked” on data packets sent by the sender 106.

In some embodiments, the flow controller 220 manipulates, adjusts,simulates, changes, improves or otherwise adapts the behavior of thetransport layer protocol to provide improved performance or operationsof delivery, data rates and/or bandwidth utilization of the transportlayer. The flow controller 220 may implement a plurality of data flowcontrol techniques at the transport layer, including but not limitedto 1) pre-acknowledgements, 2) window virtualization, 3) recongestiontechniques, 3) local retransmission techniques, 4) wavefront detectionand disambiguation, 5) transport control protocol selectiveacknowledgements, 6) transaction boundary detection techniques and 7)repacketization.

Although a sender may be generally described herein as a client 102 anda receiver as a server 106, a sender may be any end point such as aserver 106 or any computing device 100 on the network 104. Likewise, areceiver may be a client 102 or any other computing device on thenetwork 104.

Pre-Acknowledgements

In brief overview of a pre-acknowledgement flow control technique, theflow controller 220, in some embodiments, handles the acknowledgementsand retransmits for a sender, effectively terminating the sender'sconnection with the downstream portion of a network connection. Inreference to FIG. 1B, one possible deployment of an appliance 200 into anetwork architecture to implement this feature is depicted. In thisexample environment, a sending computer or client 102 transmits data onnetwork 104, for example, via a switch, which determines that the datais destined for VPN appliance 205. Because of the chosen networktopology, all data destined for VPN appliance 205 traverses appliance200, so the appliance 200 can apply any necessary algorithms to thisdata.

Continuing further with the example, the client 102 transmits a packet,which is received by the appliance 200. When the appliance 200 receivesthe packet, which is transmitted from the client 102 to a recipient viathe VPN appliance 205, the appliance 200 retains a copy of the packetand forwards the packet downstream to the VPN appliance 205. Theappliance 200 then generates an acknowledgement packet (ACK) and sendsthe ACK packet back to the client 102 or sending endpoint. This ACK, apre-acknowledgment, causes the sender 102 to believe that the packet hasbeen delivered successfully, freeing the sender's resources forsubsequent processing. The appliance 200 retains the copy of the packetdata in the event that a retransmission of the packet is required, sothat the sender 102 does not have to handle retransmissions of the data.This early generation of acknowledgements may be called “preacking.”

If a retransmission of the packet is required, the appliance 200retransmits the packet to the sender. The appliance 200 may determinewhether retransmission is required as a sender would in a traditionalsystem, for example, determining that a packet is lost if anacknowledgement has not been received for the packet after apredetermined amount of time. To this end, the appliance 200 monitorsacknowledgements generated by the receiving endpoint, e.g., server 106(or any other downstream network entity) so that it can determinewhether the packet has been successfully delivered or needs to beretransmitted. If the appliance 200 determines that the packet has beensuccessfully delivered, the appliance 200 is free to discard the savedpacket data. The appliance 200 may also inhibit forwardingacknowledgements for packets that have already been received by thesending endpoint.

In the embodiment described above, the appliance 200 via the flowcontroller 220 controls the sender 102 through the delivery ofpre-acknowledgements, also referred to as “preacks”, as though theappliance 200 was a receiving endpoint itself. Since the appliance 200is not an endpoint and does not actually consume the data, the appliance200 includes a mechanism for providing overflow control to the sendingendpoint. Without overflow control, the appliance 200 could run out ofmemory because the appliance 200 stores packets that have been preackedto the sending endpoint but not yet acknowledged as received by thereceiving endpoint. Therefore, in a situation in which the sender 102transmits packets to the appliance 200 faster than the appliance 200 canforward the packets downstream, the memory available in the appliance200 to store unacknowledged packet data can quickly fill. A mechanismfor overflow control allows the appliance 200 to control transmission ofthe packets from the sender 102 to avoid this problem.

In one embodiment, the appliance 200 or flow controller 220 includes aninherent “self-clocking” overflow control mechanism. This self-clockingis due to the order in which the appliance 200 may be designed totransmit packets downstream and send ACKs to the sender 102 or 106. Insome embodiments, the appliance 200 does not preack the packet untilafter it transmits the packet downstream. In this way, the sender 102will receive the ACKs at the rate at which the appliance 200 is able totransmit packets rather than the rate at which the appliance 200receives packets from the sender 100. This helps to regulate thetransmission of packets from a sender 102.

Window Virtualization

Another overflow control mechanism that the appliance 200 may implementis to use the TCP window size parameter, which tells a sender how muchbuffer the receiver is permitting the sender to fill up. A nonzerowindow size (e.g., a size of at least one Maximum Segment Size (MSS)) ina preack permits the sending endpoint to continue to deliver data to theappliance, whereas a zero window size inhibits further datatransmission. Accordingly, the appliance 200 may regulate the flow ofpackets from the sender, for example when the appliance's 200 buffer isbecoming full, by appropriately setting the TCP window size in eachpreack.

Another technique to reduce this additional overhead is to applyhysteresis. When the appliance 200 delivers data to the slower side, theoverflow control mechanism in the appliance 200 can require that aminimum amount of space be available before sending a nonzero windowadvertisement to the sender. In one embodiment, the appliance 200 waitsuntil there is a minimum of a predetermined number of packets, such asfour packets, of space available before sending a nonzero window packet,such as a packet indicating a window size of four packets. This mayreduce the overhead by approximately a factor of four, since only twoACK packets are sent for each group of four data packets, instead ofeight ACK packets for four data packets.

Another technique the appliance 200 or flow controller 220 may use foroverflow control is the TCP delayed ACK mechanism, which skips ACKs toreduce network traffic. The TCP delayed ACKs automatically delay thesending of an ACK, either until two packets are received or until afixed timeout has occurred. This mechanism alone can result in cuttingthe overhead in half, moreover, by increasing the numbers of packetsabove two, additional overhead reduction is realized. But merelydelaying the ACK itself may be insufficient to control overflow, and theappliance 200 may also use the advertised window mechanism on the ACKsto control the sender. When doing this, the appliance 200 in oneembodiment avoids triggering the timeout mechanism of the sender bydelaying the ACK too long.

In one embodiment, the flow controller 220 does not preack the lastpacket of a group of packets. By not preacking the last packet, or atleast one of the packets in the group, the appliance avoids a falseacknowledgement for a group of packets. For example, if the appliancewere to send a preack for a last packet and the packet were subsequentlylost, the sender would have been tricked into thinking that the packetis delivered when it was not. Thinking that the packet had beendelivered, the sender could discard that data. If the appliance alsolost the packet, there would be no way to retransmit the packet to therecipient. By not preacking the last packet of a group of packets, thesender will not discard the packet until it has been delivered.

In another embodiment, the flow controller 220 may use a windowvirtualization technique to control the rate of flow or bandwidthutilization of a network connection. Though it may not immediately beapparent from examining conventional literature such as RFC 1323, thereis effectively a send window for transport layer protocols such as TCP.The send window is similar to the receive window, in that it consumesbuffer space (though on the sender). The sender's send window consistsof all data sent by the application that has not been acknowledged bythe receiver. This data must be retained in memory in caseretransmission is required. Since memory is a shared resource, some TCPstack implementations limit the size of this data. When the send windowis full, an attempt by an application program to send more data resultsin blocking the application program until space is available. Subsequentreception of acknowledgements will free send-window memory and unblockthe application program. This window size is known as the socket buffersize in some TCP implementations.

In one embodiment, the flow control module 220 is configured to provideaccess to increased window (or buffer) sizes. This configuration mayalso be referenced to as window virtualization. In an embodimentincluding TCP as the transport layer protocol, the TCP header mayinclude a bit string corresponding to a window scale. In one embodiment,“window” may be referenced in a context of send, receive, or both.

One embodiment of window virtualization is to insert a preackingappliance 200 into a TCP session. In reference to any of theenvironments of FIG. 1A or 1B, initiation of a data communicationsession between a source node, e.g., client 102 (for ease of discussion,now referenced as source node 102), and a destination node, e.g., server106 (for ease of discussion, now referenced as destination node 106) isestablished. For TCP communications, the source node 102 initiallytransmits a synchronization signal (“SYN”) through its local areanetwork 104 to first flow control module 220. The first flow controlmodule 220 inserts a configuration identifier into the TCP headeroptions area. The configuration identifier identifies this point in thedata path as a flow control module.

The appliances 200 via a flow control module 220 provide window (orbuffer) to allow increasing data buffering capabilities within a sessiondespite having end nodes with small buffer sizes, e.g., typically 16 kbytes. However, RFC 1323 requires window scaling for any buffer sizesgreater than 64 k bytes, which must be set at the time of sessioninitialization (SYN, SYN-ACK signals). Moreover, the window scalingcorresponds to the lowest common denominator in the data path, often anend node with small buffer size. This window scale often is a scale of 0or 1, which corresponds to a buffer size of up to 64 k or 128 k bytes.Note that because the window size is defined as the window field in eachpacket shifted over by the window scale, the window scale establishes anupper limit for the buffer, but does not guarantee the buffer isactually that large. Each packet indicates the current available bufferspace at the receiver in the window field.

In one embodiment of scaling using the window virtualization technique,during connection establishment (i.e., initialization of a session) whenthe first flow control module 220 receives from the source node 102 theSYN signal (or packet), the flow control module 220 stores the windowsscale of the source node 102 (which is the previous node) or stores a 0for window scale if the scale of the previous node is missing. The firstflow control module 220 also modifies the scale, e.g., increases thescale to 4 from 0 or 1, in the SYN-FCM signal. When the second flowcontrol module 220 receives the SYN signal, it stores the increasedscale from the first flow control signal and resets the scale in the SYNsignal back to the source node 103 scale value for transmission to thedestination node 106. When the second flow controller 220 receives theSYN-ACK signal from the destination node 106, it stores the scale fromthe destination node 106 scale, e.g., 0 or 1, and modifies it to anincreased scale that is sent with the SYN-ACK-FCM signal. The first flowcontrol node 220 receives and notes the received window scale andrevises the windows scale sent back to the source node 102 back down tothe original scale, e.g., 0 or 1. Based on the above window shiftconversation during connection establishment, the window field in everysubsequent packet, e.g., TCP packet, of the session must be shiftedaccording to the window shift conversion.

The window scale, as described above, expresses buffer sizes of over 64k and may not be required for window virtualization. Thus, shifts forwindow scale may be used to express increased buffer capacity in eachflow control module 220. This increase in buffer capacity in may bereferenced as window (or buffer) virtualization. The increase in buffersize allows greater packet throughput from and to the respective endnodes 102 and 106. Note that buffer sizes in TCP are typically expressedin terms of bytes, but for ease of discussion “packets” may be used inthe description herein as it relates to virtualization.

By way of example, a window (or buffer) virtualization performed by theflow controller 220 is described. In this example, the source node 102and the destination node 106 are configured similar to conventional endnodes having a limited buffer capacity of 16 k bytes, which equalsapproximately 10 packets of data. Typically, an end node 102, 106 mustwait until the packet is transmitted and confirmation is received beforea next group of packets can be transmitted. In one embodiment, usingincreased buffer capacity in the flow control modules 220, when thesource node 103 transmits its data packets, the first flow controlmodule 220 receives the packets, stores it in its larger capacitybuffer, e.g., 512 packet capacity, and immediately sends back anacknowledgement signal indicating receipt of the packets (“REC-ACK”)back to the source node 102. The source node 102 can then “flush” itscurrent buffer, load the buffer with 10 new data packets, and transmitthose onto the first flow control module 220. Again, the first flowcontrol module 220 transmits a REC-ACK signal back to the source node102 and the source node 102 flushes its buffer and loads it with 10 morenew packets for transmission.

As the first flow control module 220 receives the data packets from thesource nodes, it loads up its buffer accordingly. When it is ready thefirst flow control module 220 can begin transmitting the data packets tothe second flow control module 230, which also has an increased buffersize, for example, to receive 512 packets. The second flow controlmodule 220′ receives the data packets and begins to transmit 10 packetsat a time to the destination node 106. Each REC-ACK received at thesecond flow control node 220 from the destination node 106 results in 10more packets being transmitted to the destination node 106 until all thedata packets are transferred. Hence, the present invention is able toincrease data transmission throughput between the source node (sender)102 and the destination node (receiver) 106 by taking advantage of thelarger buffer in the flow control modules 220, 220′ between the devices.

It is noted that by “preacking” the transmission of data as describedpreviously, a sender (or source node 102) is allowed to transmit moredata than is possible without the preacks, thus affecting a largerwindow size. For example, in one embodiment this technique is effectivewhen the flow control module 220, 220′ is located “near” a node (e.g.,source node 102 or destination node 106) that lacks large windows.

Recongestion

Another technique or algorithm of the flow controller 220 is referred toas recongestion. The standard TCP congestion avoidance algorithms areknown to perform poorly in the face of certain network conditions,including: large RTTs (round trip times), high packet loss rates, andothers. When the appliance 200 detects a congestion condition such aslong round trip times or high packet loss, the appliance 200 intervenes,substituting an alternate congestion avoidance algorithm that bettersuits the particular network condition. In one embodiment, therecongestion algorithm uses preacks to effectively terminate theconnection between the sender and the receiver. The appliance 200 thenresends the packets from itself to the receiver, using a differentcongestion avoidance algorithm. Recongestion algorithms may be dependenton the characteristics of the TCP connection. The appliance 200 monitorseach TCP connection, characterizing it with respect to the differentdimensions, selecting a recongestion algorithm that is appropriate forthe current characterization.

In one embodiment, upon detecting a TCP connection that is limited byround trip times (RTT), a recongestion algorithm is applied whichbehaves as multiple TCP connections. Each TCP connection operates withinits own performance limit but the aggregate bandwidth achieves a higherperformance level. One parameter in this mechanism is the number ofparallel connections that are applied (N). Too large a value of N andthe connection bundle achieves more than its fair share of bandwidth.Too small a value of N and the connection bundle achieves less than itsfair share of bandwidth. One method of establishing “N” relies on theappliance 200 monitoring the packet loss rate, RTT, and packet size ofthe actual connection. These numbers are plugged into a TCP responsecurve formula to provide an upper limit on the performance of a singleTCP connection in the present configuration. If each connection withinthe connection bundle is achieving substantially the same performance asthat computed to be the upper limit, then additional parallelconnections are applied. If the current bundle is achieving lessperformance than the upper limit, the number of parallel connections isreduced. In this manner, the overall fairness of the system ismaintained since individual connection bundles contain no moreparallelism than is required to eliminate the restrictions imposed bythe protocol itself. Furthermore, each individual connection retains TCPcompliance.

Another method of establishing “N” is to utilize a parallel flow controlalgorithm such as the TCP “Vegas” algorithm or the TCP “StabilizedVegas” algorithm. In this method, the network information associatedwith the connections in the connection bundle (e.g., RTT, loss rate,average packet size, etc.) is aggregated and applied to the alternateflow control algorithm. The results of this algorithm are in turndistributed among the connections of the bundle controlling their number(i.e., N). Optionally, each connection within the bundle continues usingthe standard TCP congestion avoidance algorithm.

In another embodiment, the individual connections within a parallelbundle are virtualized, i.e., actual individual TCP connections are notestablished. Instead the congestion avoidance algorithm is modified tobehave as though there were N parallel connections. This method has theadvantage of appearing to transiting network nodes as a singleconnection. Thus the QOS, security and other monitoring methods of thesenodes are unaffected by the recongestion algorithm. In yet anotherembodiment, the individual connections within a parallel bundle arereal, i.e., a separate. TCP connection is established for each of theparallel connections within a bundle. The congestion avoidance algorithmfor each TCP connection need not be modified.

Retransmission

In some embodiments, the flow controller 220 may apply a localretransmission technique. One reason for implementing preacks is toprepare to transit to a high-loss link (e.g., wireless). In theseembodiments, the preacking appliance 200 or flow control module 220 islocated most beneficially “before” the wireless link. This allowsretransmissions to be performed closer to the high loss link, removingthe retransmission burden from the remainder of the network. Theappliance 200 may provide local retransmission, in which case, packetsdropped due to failures of the link are retransmitted directly by theappliance 200. This is advantageous because it eliminates theretransmission burden upon an end node, such as server 106, andinfrastructure of any of the networks 104. With appliance 200 providinglocal retransmissions, the dropped packet can be retransmitted acrossthe high loss link without necessitating a retransmit by an end node anda corresponding decrease in the rate of data transmission from the endnode.

Another reason for implementing preacks is to avoid a receive time out(RTO) penalty. In standard TCP there are many situations that result inan RTO, even though a large percentage of the packets in flight weresuccessfully received. With standard TCP algorithms, dropping more thanone packet within an RTT window would likely result in a timeout.Additionally, most TCP connections experience a timeout if aretransmitted packet is dropped. In a network with a high bandwidthdelay product, even a relatively small packet loss rate will causefrequent Retransmission timeouts (RTOs). In one embodiment, theappliance 200 uses a retransmit and timeout algorithm is avoid prematureRTOs. The appliance 200 or flow controller 220 maintains a count ofretransmissions is maintained on a per-packet basis. Each time that apacket is retransmitted, the count is incremented by one and theappliance 200 continues to transmit packets. In some embodiments, onlyif a packet has been retransmitted a predetermined number of times is anRTO declared.

Wavefront Detection and Disambiguation

In some embodiments, the appliance 200 or flow controller 220 useswavefront detection and disambiguation techniques in managing andcontrolling flow of network traffic. In this technique, the flowcontroller 220 uses transmit identifiers or numbers to determine whetherparticular data packets need to be retransmitted. By way of example, asender transmits data packets over a network, where each instance of atransmitted data packet is associated with a transmit number. It can beappreciated that the transmit number for a packet is not the same as thepacket's sequence number, since a sequence number references the data inthe packet while the transmit number references an instance of atransmission of that data. The transmit number can be any informationusable for this purpose, including a timestamp associated with a packetor simply an increasing number (similar to a sequence number or a packetnumber). Because a data segment may be retransmitted, different transmitnumbers may be associated with a particular sequence number.

As the sender transmits data packets, the sender maintains a datastructure of acknowledged instances of data packet transmissions. Eachinstance of a data packet transmission is referenced by its sequencenumber and transmit number. By maintaining a transmit number for eachpacket, the sender retains the ordering of the transmission of datapackets. When the sender receives an ACK or a SACK, the senderdetermines the highest transmit number associated with packets that thereceiver indicated has arrived (in the received acknowledgement). Anyoutstanding unacknowledged packets with lower transmit numbers arepresumed lost.

In some embodiments, the sender is presented with an ambiguous situationwhen the arriving packet has been retransmitted: a standard ACK/SACKdoes not contain enough information to allow the sender to determinewhich transmission of the arriving packet has triggered theacknowledgement. After receiving an ambiguous acknowledgement,therefore, the sender disambiguates the acknowledgement to associate itwith a transmit number. In various embodiments, one or a combination ofseveral techniques may be used to resolve this ambiguity.

In one embodiment, the sender includes an identifier with a transmitteddata packet, and the receiver returns that identifier or a functionthereof with the acknowledgement. The identifier may be a timestamp(e.g., a TCP timestamp as described in RFC 1323), a sequential number,or any other information that can be used to resolve between two or moreinstances of a packet's transmission. In an embodiment in which the TCPtimestamp option is used to disambiguate the acknowledgement, eachpacket is tagged with up to 32-bits of unique information. Upon receiptof the data packet, the receiver echoes this unique information back tothe sender with the acknowledgement. The sender ensures that theoriginally sent packet and its retransmitted version or versions containdifferent values for the timestamp option, allowing it to unambiguouslyeliminate the ACK ambiguity. The sender may maintain this uniqueinformation, for example, in the data structure in which it stores thestatus of sent data packets. This technique is advantageous because itcomplies with industry standards and is thus likely to encounter littleor no interoperability issues. However, this technique may require tenbytes of TCP header space in some implementations, reducing theeffective throughput rate on the network and reducing space availablefor other TCP options.

In another embodiment, another field in the packet, such as the IP IDfield, is used to disambiguate in a way similar to the TCP timestampoption described above. The sender arranges for the ID field values ofthe original and the retransmitted version or versions of the packet tohave different ID fields in the IP header. Upon reception of the datapacket at the receiver, or a proxy device thereof, the receiver sets theID field of the ACK packet to a function of the ID field of the packetthat triggers the ACK. This method is advantageous, as it requires noadditional data to be sent, preserving the efficiency of the network andTCP header space. The function chosen should provide a high degree oflikelihood of providing disambiguation. In a preferred embodiment, thesender selects IP ID values with the most significant bit set to 0. Whenthe receiver responds, the IP ID value is set to the same IP ID valuewith the most significant bit set to a one.

In another embodiment, the transmit numbers associated withnon-ambiguous acknowledgements are used to disambiguate an ambiguousacknowledgement. This technique is based on the principle thatacknowledgements for two packets will tend to be received closer in timeas the packets are transmitted closer in time. Packets that are notretransmitted will not result in ambiguity, as the acknowledgementsreceived for such packets can be readily associated with a transmitnumber. Therefore, these known transmit numbers are compared to thepossible transmit numbers for an ambiguous acknowledgement received nearin time to the known acknowledgement. The sender compares the transmitnumbers of the ambiguous acknowledgement against the last known receivedtransmit number, selecting the one closest to the known receivedtransmit number. For example, if an acknowledgement for data packet 1 isreceived and the last received acknowledgement was for data packet 5,the sender resolves the ambiguity by assuming that the third instance ofdata packet 1 caused the acknowledgement.

Selective Acknowledgements

Another technique of the appliance 200 or flow controller 220 is toimplement an embodiment of transport control protocol selectiveacknowledgements, or TCP SACK, to determine what packets have or havenot been received. This technique allows the sender to determineunambiguously a list of packets that have been received by the receiveras well as an accurate list of packets not received. This functionalitymay be implemented by modifying the sender and/or receiver, or byinserting sender- and receiver-side flow control modules 220 in thenetwork path between the sender and receiver. In reference to FIG. 1A orFIG. 1B, a sender, e.g., client 102, is configured to transmit datapackets to the receiver, e.g., server 106, over the network 104. Inresponse, the receiver returns a TCP Selective Acknowledgment option,referred to as SACK packet to the sender. In one embodiment, thecommunication is bi-directional, although only one direction ofcommunication is discussed here for simplicity. The receiver maintains alist, or other suitable data structure, that contains a group of rangesof sequence numbers for data packets that the receiver has actuallyreceived. In some embodiments, the list is sorted by sequence number inan ascending or descending order. The receiver also maintains a left-offpointer, which comprises a reference into the list and indicates theleft-off point from the previously generated SACK packet.

Upon reception of a data packet, the receiver generates and transmits aSACK packet back to the sender. In some embodiments, the SACK packetincludes a number of fields, each of which can hold a range of sequencenumbers to indicate a set of received data packets. The receiver fillsthis first field of the SACK packet with a range of sequence numbersthat includes the landing packet that triggered the SACK packet. Theremaining available SACK fields are filled with ranges of sequencenumbers from the list of received packets. As there are more ranges inthe list than can be loaded into the SACK packet, the receiver uses theleft-off pointer to determine which ranges are loaded into the SACKpacket. The receiver inserts the SACK ranges consecutively from thesorted list, starting from the range referenced by the pointer andcontinuing down the list until the available SACK range space in the TCPheader of the SACK packet is consumed. The receiver wraps around to thestart of the list if it reaches the end. In some embodiments, two orthree additional SACK ranges can be added to the SACK range information.

Once the receiver generates the SACK packet, the receiver sends theacknowledgement back to the sender. The receiver then advances theleft-off pointer by one or more SACK range entries in the list. If thereceiver inserts four SACK ranges, for example, the left-off pointer maybe advanced two SACK ranges in the list. When the advanced left-offpointer reaches at the end of the list, the pointer is reset to thestart of the list, effectively wrapping around the list of knownreceived ranges. Wrapping around the list enables the system to performwell, even in the presence of large losses of SACK packets, since theSACK information that is not communicated due to a lost SACK packet willeventually be communicated once the list is wrapped around.

It can be appreciated, therefore, that a SACK packet may communicateseveral details about the condition of the receiver. First, the SACKpacket indicates that, upon generation of the SACK packet, the receiverhad just received a data packet that is within the first field of theSACK information. Secondly, the second and subsequent fields of the SACKinformation indicate that the receiver has received the data packetswithin those ranges. The SACK information also implies that the receiverhad not, at the time of the SACK packet's generation, received any ofthe data packets that fall between the second and subsequent fields ofthe SACK information. In essence, the ranges between the second andsubsequent ranges in the SACK information are “holes” in the receiveddata, the data therein known not to have been delivered. Using thismethod, therefore, when a SACK packet has sufficient space to includemore than two SACK ranges, the receiver may indicate to the sender arange of data packets that have not yet been received by the receiver.

In another embodiment, the sender uses the SACK packet described abovein combination with the retransmit technique described above to makeassumptions about which data packets have been delivered to thereceiver. For example, when the retransmit algorithm (using the transmitnumbers) declares a packet lost, the sender considers the packet to beonly conditionally lost, as it is possible that the SACK packetidentifying the reception of this packet was lost rather than the datapacket itself The sender thus adds this packet to a list of potentiallylost packets, called the presumed lost list. Each time a SACK packetarrives, the known missing ranges of data from the SACK packet arecompared to the packets in the presumed lost list. Packets that containdata known to be missing are declared actually lost and are subsequentlyretransmitted. In this way, the two schemes are combined to give thesender better information about which packets have been lost and need tobe retransmitted.

Transaction Boundary Detection

In some embodiments, the appliance 200 or flow controller 220 applies atechnique referred to as transaction boundary detection. In oneembodiment, the technique pertains to ping-pong behaved connections. Atthe TCP layer, ping-pong behavior is when one communicant—a sender—sendsdata and then waits for a response from the other communicant—thereceiver. Examples of ping-pong behavior include remote procedure call,HTTP and others. The algorithms described above use retransmissiontimeout (RTO) to recover from the dropping of the last packet or packetsassociated with the transaction. Since the TCP RTO mechanism isextremely coarse in some embodiments, for example requiring a minimumone second value in all cases), poor application behavior may be seen inthese situations.

In one embodiment, the sender of data or a flow control module 220coupled to the sender detects a transaction boundary in the data beingsent. Upon detecting a transaction boundary, the sender or a flowcontrol module 220 sends additional packets, whose reception generatesadditional ACK or SACK responses from the receiver. Insertion of theadditional packets is preferably limited to balance between improvedapplication response time and network capacity utilization. The numberof additional packets that is inserted may be selected according to thecurrent loss rate associated with that connection, with more packetsselected for connections having a higher loss rate.

One method of detecting a transaction boundary is time based. If thesender has been sending data and ceases, then after a period of time thesender or flow control module 200 declares a transaction boundary. Thismay be combined with other techniques. For example, the setting of thePSH (TCP Push) bit by the sender in the TCP header may indicate atransaction boundary. Accordingly, combining the time-based approachwith these additional heuristics can provide for more accurate detectionof a transaction boundary. In another technique, if the sender or flowcontrol module 220 understands the application protocol, it can parsethe protocol data stream and directly determine transaction boundaries.In some embodiments, this last behavior can be used independent of anytime-based mechanism.

Responsive to detecting a transaction boundary, the sender or flowcontrol module 220 transmits additional data packets to the receiver tocause acknowledgements therefrom. The additional data packets shouldtherefore be such that the receiver will at least generate an ACK orSACK in response to receiving the data packet. In one embodiment, thelast packet or packets of the transaction are simply retransmitted. Thishas the added benefit of retransmitting needed data if the last packetor packets had been dropped, as compared to merely sending dummy datapackets. In another embodiment, fractions of the last packet or packetsare sent, allowing the sender to disambiguate the arrival of thesepackets from their original packets. This allows the receiver to avoidfalsely confusing any reordering adaptation algorithms. In anotherembodiment, any of a number of well-known forward error correctiontechniques can be used to generate additional data for the insertedpackets, allowing for the reconstruction of dropped or otherwise missingdata at the receiver.

In some embodiments, the boundary detection technique described hereinhelps to avoid a timeout when the acknowledgements for the last datapackets in a transaction are dropped. When the sender or flow controlmodule 220 receives the acknowledgements for these additional datapackets, the sender can determine from these additional acknowledgementswhether the last data packets have been received or need to beretransmitted, thus avoiding a timeout. In one embodiment, if the lastpackets have been received but their acknowledgements were dropped, aflow control module 220 generates an acknowledgement for the datapackets and sends the acknowledgement to the sender, thus communicatingto the sender that the data packets have been delivered. In anotherembodiment, if the last packets have not been received, a flow controlmodule 200 sends a packet to the sender to cause the sender toretransmit the dropped data packets.

Repacketization

In yet another embodiment, the appliance 200 or flow controller 220applies a repacketization technique for improving the flow of transportlayer network traffic. In some embodiments, performance of TCP isproportional to packet size. Thus increasing packet sizes improvesperformance unless it causes substantially increased packet loss ratesor other nonlinear effects, like IP fragmentation. In general, wiredmedia (such as copper or fibre optics) have extremely low bit-errorrates, low enough that these can be ignored. For these media, it isadvantageous for the packet size to be the maximum possible beforefragmentation occurs (the maximum packet size is limited by theprotocols of the underlying transmission media). Whereas fortransmission media with higher loss rates (e.g., wireless technologiessuch as WiFi, etc., or high-loss environments such as power-linenetworking, etc.), increasing the packet size may lead to lowertransmission rates, as media-induced errors cause an entire packet to bedropped (i.e., media-induced errors beyond the capability of thestandard error correcting code for that media), increasing the packetloss rate. A sufficiently large increase in the packet loss rate willactually negate any performance benefit of increasing packet size. Insome cases, it may be difficult for a TCP endpoint to choose an optimalpacket size. For example, the optimal packet size may vary across thetransmission path, depending on the nature of each link.

By inserting an appliance 200 or flow control module 220 into thetransmission path, the flow controller 220 monitors characteristics ofthe link and repacketizes according to determined link characteristics.In one embodiment, an appliance 200 or flow controller 220 repacketizespackets with sequential data into a smaller number of larger packets. Inanother embodiment, an appliance 200 or flow controller 220 repacketizespackets by breaking part a sequence of large packets into a largernumber of smaller packets. In other embodiments, an appliance 200 orflow controller 220 monitors the link characteristics and adjusts thepacket sizes through recombination to improve throughput.

QoS

Still referring to FIG. 2A, the flow controller 220, in someembodiments, may include a QoS Engine 236, also referred to as a QoScontroller. In another embodiment, the appliance 200 and/or networkoptimization engine 250 includes the QoS engine 236, for example,separately but in communication with the flow controller 220. The QoSEngine 236 includes any logic, business rules, function or operationsfor performing one or more Quality of Service (QoS) techniques improvingthe performance, operation or quality of service of any of the networkconnections. In some embodiments, the QoS engine 236 includes networktraffic control and management mechanisms that provide differentpriorities to different users, applications, data flows or connections.In other embodiments, the QoS engine 236 controls, maintains, or assuresa certain level of performance to a user, application, data flow orconnection. In one embodiment, the QoS engine 236 controls, maintains orassures a certain portion of bandwidth or network capacity for a user,application, data flow or connection. In some embodiments, the QoSengine 236 monitors the achieved level of performance or the quality ofservice corresponding to a user, application, data flow or connection,for example, the data rate and delay. In response to monitoring, the QoSengine 236 dynamically controls or adjusts scheduling priorities ofnetwork packets to achieve the desired level of performance or qualityof service.

In some embodiments, the QoS engine 236 prioritizes, schedules andtransmits network packets according to one or more classes or levels ofservices. In some embodiments, the class or level service mayinclude: 1) best efforts, 2) controlled load, 3) guaranteed or 4)qualitative. For a best efforts class of service, the appliance 200makes reasonable effort to deliver packets (a standard service level).For a controlled load class of service, the appliance 200 or QoS engine236 approximates the standard packet error loss of the transmissionmedium or approximates the behavior of best-effort service in lightlyloaded network conditions. For a guaranteed class of serivce, theappliance 200 or QoS engine 236 guarantees the ability to transmit dataat a determined rate for the duration of the connection. For aqualitative class of service, the appliance 200 or QoS engine 236 thequalitative service class is used for applications, users, data flows orconnection that require or desire prioritized traffic but cannotquantify resource needs or level of service. In these cases, theappliance 200 or QoS engine 236 determines the class of service orprioritization based on any logic or configuration of the QoS engine 236or based on business rules or policies. For example, in one embodiment,the QoS engine 236 prioritizes, schedules and transmits network packetsaccording to one or more policies as specified by the policy engine 295,295′.

Protocol Acceleration

The protocol accelerator 234 includes any logic, business rules,function or operations for optimizing, accelerating, or otherwiseimproving the performance, operation or quality of service of one ormore protocols. In one embodiment, the protocol accelerator 234accelerates any application layer protocol or protocols at layers 5-7 ofthe network stack. In other embodiments, the protocol accelerator 234accelerates a transport layer or a layer 4 protocol. In one embodiment,the protocol accelerator 234 accelerates layer 2 or layer 3 protocols.In some embodiments, the protocol accelerator 234 is configured,constructed or designed to optimize or accelerate each of one or moreprotocols according to the type of data, characteristics and/or behaviorof the protocol. In another embodiment, the protocol accelerator 234 isconfigured, constructed or designed to improve a user experience,response times, network or computer load, and/or network or bandwidthutilization with respect to a protocol.

In one embodiment, the protocol accelerator 234 is configured,constructed or designed to minimize the effect of WAN latency on filesystem access. In some embodiments, the protocol accelerator 234optimizes or accelerates the use of the CIFS (Common Internet FileSystem) protocol to improve file system access times or access times todata and files. In some embodiments, the protocol accelerator 234optimizes or accelerates the use of the NFS (Network File System)protocol. In another embodiment, the protocol accelerator 234 optimizesor accelerates the use of the File Transfer protocol (FTP).

In one embodiment, the protocol accelerator 234 is configured,constructed or designed to optimize or accelerate a protocol carrying asa payload or using any type and form of markup language. In otherembodiments, the protocol accelerator 234 is configured, constructed ordesigned to optimize or accelerate a HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP).In another embodiment, the protocol accelerator 234 is configured,constructed or designed to optimize or accelerate a protocol carrying asa payload or otherwise using XML (eXtensible Markup Language).

Transparency and Multiple Deployment Configurations

In some embodiments, the appliance 200 and/or network optimizationengine 250 is transparent to any data flowing across a networkconnection or link, such as a WAN link. In one embodiment, the appliance200 and/or network optimization engine 250 operates in such a mannerthat the data flow across the WAN is recognizable by any networkmonitoring, QOS management or network analysis tools. In someembodiments, the appliance 200 and/or network optimization engine 250does not create any tunnels or streams for transmitting data that mayhide, obscure or otherwise make the network traffic not transparent. Inother embodiments, the appliance 200 operates transparently in that theappliance does not change any of the source and/or destination addressinformation or port information of a network packet, such as internetprotocol addresses or port numbers. In other embodiments, the appliance200 and/or network optimization engine 250 is considered to operate orbehave transparently to the network, an application, client, server orother appliances or computing device in the network infrastructure. Thatis, in some embodiments, the appliance is transparent in that networkrelated configuration of any device or appliance on the network does notneed to be modified to support the appliance 200.

The appliance 200 may be deployed in any of the following deploymentconfigurations: 1) in-line of traffic, 2) in proxy mode, or 3) in avirtual in-line mode. In some embodiments, the appliance 200 may bedeployed inline to one or more of the following: a router, a client, aserver or another network device or appliance. In other embodiments, theappliance 200 may be deployed in parallel to one or more of thefollowing: a router, a client, a server or another network device orappliance. In parallel deployments, a client, server, router or othernetwork appliance may be configured to forward, transfer or transitnetworks to or via the appliance 200.

In the embodiment of in-line, the appliance 200 is deployed inline witha WAN link of a router. In this way, all traffic from the WAN passesthrough the appliance before arriving at a destination of a LAN.

In the embodiment of a proxy mode, the appliance 200 is deployed as aproxy device between a client and a server. In some embodiments, theappliance 200 allows clients to make indirect connections to a resourceon a network. For example, a client connects to a resource via theappliance 200, and the appliance provides the resource either byconnecting to the resource, a different resource, or by serving theresource from a cache. In some cases, the appliance may alter theclient's request or the server's response for various purposes, such asfor any of the optimization techniques discussed herein. In oneembodiment, the client 102 send requests addressed to the proxy. In onecase, the proxy responds to the client in place of or acting as a server106. In other embodiments, the appliance 200 behaves as a transparentproxy, by intercepting and forwarding requests and responsestransparently to a client and/or server. Without client-sideconfiguration, the appliance 200 may redirect client requests todifferent servers or networks. In some embodiments, the appliance 200may perform any type and form of network address translation, referredto as NAT, on any network traffic traversing the appliance.

In some embodiments, the appliance 200 is deployed in a virtual in-linemode configuration. In this embodiment, a router or a network devicewith routing or switching functionality is configured to forward,reroute or otherwise provide network packets destined to a network tothe appliance 200. The appliance 200 then performs any desiredprocessing on the network packets, such as any of the WAN optimizationtechniques discussed herein. Upon completion of processing, theappliance 200 forwards the processed network packet to the router totransmit to the destination on the network. In this way, the appliance200 can be coupled to the router in parallel but still operate as it ifthe appliance 200 were inline. This deployment mode also providestransparency in that the source and destination addresses and portinformation are preserved as the packet is processed and transmitted viathe appliance through the network.

End Node Deployment

Although the network optimization engine 250 is generally describedabove in conjunction with an appliance 200, the network optimizationengine 250, or any portion thereof, may be deployed, distributed orotherwise operated on any end node, such as a client 102 and/or server106. As such, a client or server may provide any of the systems andmethods of the network optimization engine 250 described herein inconjunction with one or more appliances 200 or without an appliance 200.

Referring now to FIG. 2B, an example embodiment of the networkoptimization engine 250 deployed on one or more end nodes is depicted.In brief overview, the client 102 may include a first networkoptimization engine 250′ and the server 106 may include a second networkoptimization engine 250″. The client 102 and server 106 may establish atransport layer connection and exchange communications with or withouttraversing an appliance 200.

In one embodiment, the network optimization engine 250′ of the client102 performs the techniques described herein to optimize, accelerate orotherwise improve the performance, operation or quality of service ofnetwork traffic communicated with the server 106. In another embodiment,the network optimization engine 250″ of the server 106 performs thetechniques described herein to optimize, accelerate or otherwise improvethe performance, operation or quality of service of network trafficcommunicated with the client 102. In some embodiments, the networkoptimization engine 250′ of the client 102 and the network optimizationengine 250″ of the server 106 perform the techniques described herein tooptimize, accelerate or otherwise improve the performance, operation orquality of service of network traffic communicated between the client102 and the server 106. In yet another embodiment, the networkoptimization engine 250′ of the client 102 performs the techniquesdescribed herein in conjunction with an appliance 200 to optimize,accelerate or otherwise improve the performance, operation or quality ofservice of network traffic communicated with the client 102. In stillanother embodiment, the network optimization engine 250″ of the server106 performs the techniques described herein in conjunction with anappliance 200 to optimize, accelerate or otherwise improve theperformance, operation or quality of service of network trafficcommunicated with the server 106.

C. Client Agent

As illustrated in FIGS. 2A and 2B, a client deployed in the system orwith an appliance 200 or 205 may include a client agent 120. In oneembodiment, the client agent 120 is used to facilitate communicationswith one or more appliances 200 or 205. In some embodiments, any of thesystems and methods of the appliance 200 or 205 described herein may bedeployed, implemented or embodied in a client, such as via a clientagent 120. In other embodiments, the client agent 120 may includeapplications, programs, or agents providing additional functionalitysuch as end point detection and authorization, virtual private networkconnectivity, and application streaming. Prior to discussing otherembodiments of systems and methods of the appliance 200, embodiments ofthe client agent 120 will be described.

Referring now to FIG. 3, an embodiment of a client agent 120 isdepicted. The client 102 has a client agent 120 for establishing,exchanging, managing or controlling communications with the appliance200, appliance 205 and/or server 106 via a network 104. In someembodiments, the client agent 120, which may also be referred to as aWAN client, accelerates WAN network communications and/or is used tocommunicate via appliance 200 on a network. In brief overview, theclient 102 operates on computing device 100 having an operating systemwith a kernel mode 302 and a user mode 303, and a network stack 267 withone or more layers 310 a-310 b. The client 102 may have installed and/orexecute one or more applications. In some embodiments, one or moreapplications may communicate via the network stack 267 to a network 104.One of the applications, such as a web browser, may also include a firstprogram 322. For example, the first program 322 may be used in someembodiments to install and/or execute the client agent 120, or anyportion thereof. The client agent 120 includes an interceptionmechanism, or interceptor 350, for intercepting network communicationsfrom the network stack 267 from the one or more applications.

As with the appliance 200, the client has a network stack 267 includingany type and form of software, hardware, or any combinations thereof,for providing connectivity to and communications with a network 104. Thenetwork stack 267 of the client 102 includes any of the network stackembodiments described above in conjunction with the appliance 200. Insome embodiments, the client agent 120, or any portion thereof, isdesigned and constructed to operate with or work in conjunction with thenetwork stack 267 installed or otherwise provided by the operatingsystem of the client 102.

In further details, the network stack 267 of the client 102 or appliance200 (or 205) may include any type and form of interfaces for receiving,obtaining, providing or otherwise accessing any information and datarelated to network communications of the client 102. In one embodiment,an interface to the network stack 267 includes an applicationprogramming interface (API). The interface may also have any functioncall, hooking or filtering mechanism, event or call back mechanism, orany type of interfacing technique. The network stack 267 via theinterface may receive or provide any type and form of data structure,such as an object, related to functionality or operation of the networkstack 267. For example, the data structure may include information anddata related to a network packet or one or more network packets. In someembodiments, the data structure includes, references or identifies aportion of the network packet processed at a protocol layer of thenetwork stack 267, such as a network packet of the transport layer. Insome embodiments, the data structure 325 is a kernel-level datastructure, while in other embodiments, the data structure 325 is auser-mode data structure. A kernel-level data structure may have a datastructure obtained or related to a portion of the network stack 267operating in kernel-mode 302, or a network driver or other softwarerunning in kernel-mode 302, or any data structure obtained or receivedby a service, process, task, thread or other executable instructionsrunning or operating in kernel-mode of the operating system.

Additionally, some portions of the network stack 267 may execute oroperate in kernel-mode 302, for example, the data link or network layer,while other portions execute or operate in user-mode 303, such as anapplication layer of the network stack 267. For example, a first portion310 a of the network stack may provide user-mode access to the networkstack 267 to an application while a second portion 310 a of the networkstack 267 provides access to a network. In some embodiments, a firstportion 310 a of the network stack has one or more upper layers of thenetwork stack 267, such as any of layers 5-7. In other embodiments, asecond portion 310 b of the network stack 267 includes one or more lowerlayers, such as any of layers 1-4. Each of the first portion 310 a andsecond portion 310 b of the network stack 267 may include any portion ofthe network stack 267, at any one or more network layers, in user-mode303, kernel-mode, 302, or combinations thereof, or at any portion of anetwork layer or interface point to a network layer or any portion of orinterface point to the user-mode 302 and kernel-mode 203.

The interceptor 350 may include software, hardware, or any combinationof software and hardware. In one embodiment, the interceptor 350intercepts or otherwise receives a network communication at any point inthe network stack 267, and redirects or transmits the networkcommunication to a destination desired, managed or controlled by theinterceptor 350 or client agent 120. For example, the interceptor 350may intercept a network communication of a network stack 267 of a firstnetwork and transmit the network communication to the appliance 200 fortransmission on a second network 104. In some embodiments, theinterceptor 350 includes or is a driver, such as a network driverconstructed and designed to interface and work with the network stack267. In some embodiments, the client agent 120 and/or interceptor 350operates at one or more layers of the network stack 267, such as at thetransport layer. In one embodiment, the interceptor 350 includes afilter driver, hooking mechanism, or any form and type of suitablenetwork driver interface that interfaces to the transport layer of thenetwork stack, such as via the transport driver interface (TDI). In someembodiments, the interceptor 350 interfaces to a first protocol layer,such as the transport layer and another protocol layer, such as anylayer above the transport protocol layer, for example, an applicationprotocol layer. In one embodiment, the interceptor 350 includes a drivercomplying with the Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS), or aNDIS driver. In another embodiment, the interceptor 350 may be amin-filter or a mini-port driver. In one embodiment, the interceptor350, or portion thereof, operates in kernel-mode 202. In anotherembodiment, the interceptor 350, or portion thereof, operates inuser-mode 203. In some embodiments, a portion of the interceptor 350operates in kernel-mode 202 while another portion of the interceptor 350operates in user-mode 203. In other embodiments, the client agent 120operates in user-mode 203 but interfaces via the interceptor 350 to akernel-mode driver, process, service, task or portion of the operatingsystem, such as to obtain a kernel-level data structure 225. In furtherembodiments, the interceptor 350 is a user-mode application or program,such as application.

In one embodiment, the interceptor 350 intercepts or receives anytransport layer connection requests. In these embodiments, theinterceptor 350 executes transport layer application programminginterface (API) calls to set the destination information, such asdestination IP address and/or port to a desired location for thelocation. In this manner, the interceptor 350 intercepts and redirectsthe transport layer connection to an IP address and port controlled ormanaged by the interceptor 350 or client agent 120. In one embodiment,the interceptor 350 sets the destination information for the connectionto a local IP address and port of the client 102 on which the clientagent 120 is listening. For example, the client agent 120 may comprise aproxy service listening on a local IP address and port for redirectedtransport layer communications. In some embodiments, the client agent120 then communicates the redirected transport layer communication tothe appliance 200.

In some embodiments, the interceptor 350 intercepts a Domain NameService (DNS) request. In one embodiment, the client agent 120 and/orinterceptor 350 resolves the DNS request. In another embodiment, theinterceptor transmits the intercepted DNS request to the appliance 200for DNS resolution. In one embodiment, the appliance 200 resolves theDNS request and communicates the DNS response to the client agent 120.In some embodiments, the appliance 200 resolves the DNS request viaanother appliance 200′ or a DNS server 106.

In yet another embodiment, the client agent 120 may include two agents120 and 120′. In one embodiment, a first agent 120 may include aninterceptor 350 operating at the network layer of the network stack 267.In some embodiments, the first agent 120 intercepts network layerrequests such as Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) requests(e.g., ping and traceroute). In other embodiments, the second agent 120′may operate at the transport layer and intercept transport layercommunications. In some embodiments, the first agent 120 interceptscommunications at one layer of the network stack 210 and interfaces withor communicates the intercepted communication to the second agent 120′.

The client agent 120 and/or interceptor 350 may operate at or interfacewith a protocol layer in a manner transparent to any other protocollayer of the network stack 267. For example, in one embodiment, theinterceptor 350 operates or interfaces with the transport layer of thenetwork stack 267 transparently to any protocol layer below thetransport layer, such as the network layer, and any protocol layer abovethe transport layer, such as the session, presentation or applicationlayer protocols. This allows the other protocol layers of the networkstack 267 to operate as desired and without modification for using theinterceptor 350. As such, the client agent 120 and/or interceptor 350interfaces with or operates at the level of the transport layer tosecure, optimize, accelerate, route or load-balance any communicationsprovided via any protocol carried by the transport layer, such as anyapplication layer protocol over TCP/IP.

Furthermore, the client agent 120 and/or interceptor 350 may operate ator interface with the network stack 267 in a manner transparent to anyapplication, a user of the client 102, the client 102 and/or any othercomputing device 100, such as a server or appliance 200, 206, incommunications with the client 102. The client agent 120, or any portionthereof, may be installed and/or executed on the client 102 in a mannerwithout modification of an application. In one embodiment, the clientagent 120, or any portion thereof, is installed and/or executed in amanner transparent to any network configuration of the client 102,appliance 200, 205 or server 106. In some embodiments, the client agent120, or any portion thereof, is installed and/or executed withmodification to any network configuration of the client 102, appliance200, 205 or server 106. In one embodiment, the user of the client 102 ora computing device in communications with the client 102 are not awareof the existence, execution or operation of the client agent 12, or anyportion thereof. As such, in some embodiments, the client agent 120and/or interceptor 350 is installed, executed, and/or operatedtransparently to an application, user of the client 102, the client 102,another computing device, such as a server or appliance 200, 2005, orany of the protocol layers above and/or below the protocol layerinterfaced to by the interceptor 350.

The client agent 120 includes a streaming client 306, a collection agent304, SSL VPN agent 308, a network optimization engine 250, and/oracceleration program 302. In one embodiment, the client agent 120 is anIndependent Computing Architecture (ICA) client, or any portion thereof,developed by Citrix Systems, Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and is alsoreferred to as an ICA client. In some embodiments, the client agent 120has an application streaming client 306 for streaming an applicationfrom a server 106 to a client 102. In another embodiment, the clientagent 120 includes a collection agent 304 for performing end-pointdetection/scanning and collecting end-point information for theappliance 200 and/or server 106. In some embodiments, the client agent120 has one or more network accelerating or optimizing programs oragents, such as a network optimization engine 250 and an accelerationprogram 302. In one embodiment, the acceleration program 302 acceleratescommunications between client 102 and server 106 via appliance 205′. Insome embodiments, the network optimization engine 250 provides WANoptimization techniques as discussed herein.

The streaming client 306 is an application, program, process, service,task or set of executable instructions for receiving and executing astreamed application from a server 106. A server 106 may stream one ormore application data files to the streaming client 306 for playing,executing or otherwise causing to be executed the application on theclient 102. In some embodiments, the server 106 transmits a set ofcompressed or packaged application data files to the streaming client306. In some embodiments, the plurality of application files arecompressed and stored on a file server within an archive file such as aCAB, ZIP, SIT, TAR, JAR or other archives In one embodiment, the server106 decompresses, unpackages or unarchives the application files andtransmits the files to the client 102. In another embodiment, the client102 decompresses, unpackages or unarchives the application files. Thestreaming client 306 dynamically installs the application, or portionthereof, and executes the application. In one embodiment, the streamingclient 306 may be an executable program. In some embodiments, thestreaming client 306 may be able to launch another executable program.

The collection agent 304 is an application, program, process, service,task or set of executable instructions for identifying, obtaining and/orcollecting information about the client 102. In some embodiments, theappliance 200 transmits the collection agent 304 to the client 102 orclient agent 120. The collection agent 304 may be configured accordingto one or more policies of the policy engine 236 of the appliance. Inother embodiments, the collection agent 304 transmits collectedinformation on the client 102 to the appliance 200. In one embodiment,the policy engine 236 of the appliance 200 uses the collectedinformation to determine and provide access, authentication andauthorization control of the client's connection to a network 104.

In one embodiment, the collection agent 304 is an end-point detectionand scanning program, which identifies and determines one or moreattributes or characteristics of the client. For example, the collectionagent 304 may identify and determine any one or more of the followingclient-side attributes: 1) the operating system an/or a version of anoperating system, 2) a service pack of the operating system, 3) arunning service, 4) a running process, and 5) a file. The collectionagent 304 may also identify and determine the presence or version of anyone or more of the following on the client: 1) antivirus software, 2)personal firewall software, 3) anti-spam software, and 4) internetsecurity software. The policy engine 236 may have one or more policiesbased on any one or more of the attributes or characteristics of theclient or client-side attributes.

The SSL VPN agent 308 is an application, program, process, service, taskor set of executable instructions for establishing a Secure Socket Layer(SSL) virtual private network (VPN) connection from a first network 104to a second network 104′, 104″, or a SSL VPN connection from a client102 to a server 106. In one embodiment, the SSL VPN agent 308establishes a SSL VPN connection from a public network 104 to a privatenetwork 104′ or 104″. In some embodiments, the SSL VPN agent 308 worksin conjunction with appliance 205 to provide the SSL VPN connection. Inone embodiment, the SSL VPN agent 308 establishes a first transportlayer connection with appliance 205. In some embodiments, the appliance205 establishes a second transport layer connection with a server 106.In another embodiment, the SSL VPN agent 308 establishes a firsttransport layer connection with an application on the client, and asecond transport layer connection with the appliance 205. In otherembodiments, the SSL VPN agent 308 works in conjunction with WANoptimization appliance 200 to provide SSL VPN connectivity.

In some embodiments, the acceleration program 302 is a client-sideacceleration program for performing one or more acceleration techniquesto accelerate, enhance or otherwise improve a client's communicationswith and/or access to a server 106, such as accessing an applicationprovided by a server 106. The logic, functions, and/or operations of theexecutable instructions of the acceleration program 302 may perform oneor more of the following acceleration techniques: 1) multi-protocolcompression, 2) transport control protocol pooling, 3) transport controlprotocol multiplexing, 4) transport control protocol buffering, and 5)caching via a cache manager. Additionally, the acceleration program 302may perform encryption and/or decryption of any communications receivedand/or transmitted by the client 102. In some embodiments, theacceleration program 302 performs one or more of the accelerationtechniques in an integrated manner or fashion. Additionally, theacceleration program 302 can perform compression on any of theprotocols, or multiple-protocols, carried as a payload of a networkpacket of the transport layer protocol.

In one embodiment, the acceleration program 302 is designed, constructedor configured to work with appliance 205 to provide LAN sideacceleration or to provide acceleration techniques provided viaappliance 205. For example, in one embodiment of a NetScaler appliance205 manufactured by Citrix Systems, Inc., the acceleration program 302includes a NetScaler client. In some embodiments, the accelerationprogram 302 provides NetScaler acceleration techniques stand-alone in aremote device, such as in a branch office. In other embodiments, theacceleration program 302 works in conjunction with one or more NetScalerappliances 205. In one embodiment, the acceleration program 302 providesLAN-side or LAN based acceleration or optimization of network traffic.

In some embodiments, the network optimization engine 250 may bedesigned, constructed or configured to work with WAN optimizationappliance 200. In other embodiments, network optimization engine 250 maybe designed, constructed or configured to provide the WAN optimizationtechniques of appliance 200, with or without an appliance 200. Forexample, in one embodiment of a WANScaler appliance 200 manufactured byCitrix Systems, Inc. the network optimization engine 250 includes theWANscaler client. In some embodiments, the network optimization engine250 provides WANScaler acceleration techniques stand-alone in a remotelocation, such as a branch office. In other embodiments, the networkoptimization engine 250 works in conjunction with one or more WANScalerappliances 200.

In another embodiment, the network optimization engine 250 includes theacceleration program 302, or the function, operations and logic of theacceleration program 302. In some embodiments, the acceleration program302 includes the network optimization engine 250 or the function,operations and logic of the network optimization engine 250. In yetanother embodiment, the network optimization engine 250 is provided orinstalled as a separate program or set of executable instructions fromthe acceleration program 302. In other embodiments, the networkoptimization engine 250 and acceleration program 302 are included in thesame program or same set of executable instructions.

In some embodiments and still referring to FIG. 3, a first program 322may be used to install and/or execute the client agent 120, or anyportion thereof, automatically, silently, transparently, or otherwise.In one embodiment, the first program 322 is a plugin component, such anActiveX control or Java control or script that is loaded into andexecuted by an application. For example, the first program comprises anActiveX control loaded and run by a web browser application, such as inthe memory space or context of the application. In another embodiment,the first program 322 comprises a set of executable instructions loadedinto and run by the application, such as a browser. In one embodiment,the first program 322 is designed and constructed program to install theclient agent 120. In some embodiments, the first program 322 obtains,downloads, or receives the client agent 120 via the network from anothercomputing device. In another embodiment, the first program 322 is aninstaller program or a plug and play manager for installing programs,such as network drivers and the client agent 120, or any portionthereof, on the operating system of the client 102.

In some embodiments, each or any of the portions of the client agent120—a streaming client 306, a collection agent 304, SSL VPN agent 308, anetwork optimization engine 250, acceleration program 302, andinterceptor 350—may be installed, executed, configured or operated as aseparate application, program, process, service, task or set ofexecutable instructions. In other embodiments, each or any of theportions of the client agent 120 may be installed, executed, configuredor operated together as a single client agent 120.

D. Systems and Methods for a Multiple-Tier Cache and Cache IndexingSystem

Referring now FIGS. 4A-4E, systems and methods for a multiple tieredcaching and cache indexing system is depicted. In some embodiments, acache management system 232 uses a memory based object index toreference or identify corresponding objects stored in disk. In oneembodiment, the memory used to index object grows proportionally or inrelation to growth in the size of the disk. The techniques describedherein minimize, reduce or maintain the size of memory for an objectindex although the size of storage for storing objects is changed. Thesetechniques allow for more optimal use of memory for object indexingwhile increasing or decreasing disk size for object storage.

Referring now to FIG. 4A, an example embodiment of an appliance ordevice having a multiple-tiered cache indexing and storage system isdepicted. In brief overview, the appliance 200 includes networkoptimization engine having a cache manager 232 for managing an objectindex 410 in memory 122 which indexes objects stored in a portionstorage 128 used by the cache 232. The object index 410 and /or objectcache 420 of the cache 232 may be arranged into multiple tiers. Thefirst tier has a first maximum object size 412 and a first maximumnumber of objects 412 for storing objects 422, referred to as smallobjects, in storage 128 for the object cache 420. The second tier has asecond maximum object size 414 and a second maximum number of objects415 for storing objects 424 in storage 128 for the object cache 420. Thecache 232 may also include a third or nth tier having an nth maximumobject size 416 and nth maximum number of objects 417 for storingobjects 426, referred to as large objects 426, in storage 128 for theobject cache 420. The cache manager 232 may include a tier manager 402for managing or adjusting the maximum number of objects and object sizesfor each of the tiers. The cache manager 232 and/or tier manager 402 mayoperate responsive to changes in size of the storage used for the objectcache 232. In one embodiment, the cache manager 232 and/or tier manager402 maintains the memory size of the object index while the size of thestorage 128 for the object cache 420 is changed.

In some embodiments, the cache manager 232 establishes a first size ofmemory 122 to be used for or allocated to the object index 410. Any typeand form of memory of the device 100 may be used for the object index410. In one embodiment, the cache manager 232 establishes all of theavailable memory of a first memory element 122 for the object index 410.In another embodiment, the cache manager 232 establishes a first portionof a first memory element 122 for the object index. In some embodiments,the cache manager 232 uses either all available memory or a firstportion of a first memory element 122 and all of the available memory ora second a portion of a second memory element 122′. In one embodiment,the device or appliance uses a portion of the memory 122 for otherprocessing tasks, programs, services or processes of the device. In someembodiments, the cache manager 232 maintains a memory size or allocatesfixed size or portion of memory 122 for the object index 410.

In one embodiment, the cache manager 232 establishes a size of storage128, or a portion thereof, to be used or allocated for the object cache.Any type and form of storage may be used for the object cache, includingfixed or portable disks and storage I/O devices. In some embodiments,the cache manager 232 establishes or allocates all of a first storage128 for the object cache 410. In other embodiments, the cache manager232 establishes or allocates a first portion of a first storage 128 anda second portion of a second storage 128′ for the object cache 420. Insome embodiments, the cache manager 232 establishes or allocates aportion of storage 128 for each of the tiers. In another embodiment, thecache manager 232 establishes or allocates separate storages 128, 128′,128″, or portions thereof, for each of the tiers. In some embodiments,the cache manager 232 establishes a first portion of storage 128 for theobject cache 420 while the device maintains any remaining portions ofstorage 128 for other device functionality or use.

In yet another embodiment, the cache manager 232 establishes, organizes,arranges or maintains logical storage units, referred to as “chunks” ofthe storage 128. The device, such as via the cache manager 232, maymaintain a unique identifier for each logical storage unit and associatea size and starting and end points in storage of the “chunk”. In someembodiments, the cache manager 232 assigns a first set of one or morechunks for small objects 422, a second set of one or more objects formedium objects 424, and a third set of one or more chunks for largeobjects 426. In some embodiments, the cache manager 232 may designed afirst portion or area of a first storage 128 for small objects 422, asecond portion or area of a first storage 128 or second storage 128′ formedium objects 424, and a third portion or area of a first, second orthird storage for large objects 426. In one embodiment, the type andform of storage used for any of the objects 422, 424, 426 may bedetermined or established based on access rates and the frequency ofwhich the objects are accessed during operation of the device 100 orappliance 200.

The object index 410 comprises any type and form of indexing scheme forcorresponding an index to an object in cache. In one embodiment, theobject index is maintained in memory while the corresponding object isstored to disk. In some embodiments, the object index 410 comprises anentry that references or identifies a location or pointer to the objectstored in the object cache 420. In one embodiment, the object index 410uses any type of hash, checksum or fingerprinting function on a name oridentifier of the object as an entry or index. In some embodiments, theobject index 410 performs a hash, checksum or fingerprint on the object.In another embodiment, the entry of the object index 410 is a name oridentifier of the object. In some embodiments, the value for the entryor index is a location identifier for the location in storage of theobject. For example, the index value may comprises a pointer to astarting address or location of the object. In another example, theindex value includes an identifier of a chunk and an offset into thechunk for the starting location of the object.

The tier manager 402 includes software, hardware or any combination ofsoftware and hardware. The tier manager 402 may include an application,program, script, library, process, service, driver, task, thread or anytype and form of executable instructions. The tier manager 402 includesor provides logic, business rules, functions or operations forestablishing, managing, or adjusting the number of objects and objectsizes for any of the tiers of the cache. The maximum object size 412,414 and 416 and the maximum number of objects 412, 414 and 416 mayinclude any suitable value, such as an integer value that can range from0 into the 100s of thousands, millions or billions of objects dependingon the capacity of the device 100. In some cases, the values for theseparameters may be set to some negative number or other non-useful value,such as a string, to identify the value is not to be used. In someembodiments, the values for these parameters 412, 414 and 416 and 412,414 and 416 may be set as a function of one or more other values orparameters, such as the size of the memory 122 for the object index 410and/or the size of storage 128 for the object cache 420. By way ofexample and not in any way to be limiting, the following table describesan example embodiment of a three-tier cache in view of FIG. 4B:

Max Number of Max Storage Tier Cache Object Max Object Size Objects size1 Small 10 KB 200,000  2 GB 2 Medium  10 MB 100,000  10 GB 3 Large  1 GB100 100 GB

In some embodiments, the tier manager 402 may increase or decrease amaximum object size 412, 414, or 416 of an object index 410 responsiveto a change in the size of memory 122 or a change in the size of storage128 for the object cache 420. In other embodiments, the tier manager 402may increase or decrease a maximum number of objects for an object index410 responsive to a change in the size of memory 122 or a change in thesize of storage 128 for the object cache 420. In one embodiment, thetier manager 402 maintains the maximum object size 412 and maximumnumber of objects 413 for a first tier while changing the other tier'sobject sizes 414, 416 and number of object 415, 417 upon detection of achange in the size of storage 128 for the object cache 420. In otherembodiments, the tier manager 402 maintains the maximum object size 412,414 and maximum number of objects 413, 415 of the first and second tiersin view of detecting a change in the size of storage 128 for the objectcache 420. Even though the size of the storage used for a cache storage420 is increased or decreased, the cache manager 232 may maintain theobject size and number of objects for one, two or all of the tiers ofthe cache.

In yet another embodiment, the tier manager 402 may increase or decreasea maximum number of objects or a maximum object size for any one of thetiers responsive to operational conditions or characteristics of thedevice or appliance, such as a number of concurrent connections,historical information on the number and size of objects requestedand/or cached, the number of cache hits, and the portions of memoryand/or storage of a tier not used or having remaining space. In someembodiments, the cache manager 232 or tier manager 402 may include orprovide any type and form of user interface for establishing, managing,adjusting or configuring any of the following: number of tiers, maximumnumber of objects and object sizes for each tier, size of memory for theobject index, size of storage for the object cache. The user interfacemay be a graphical user interface or a command line user interface. Insome embodiments, the appliance 200 or device 100 may establish, manage,adjust or configure any of the above information responsive to one ormore policies of a policy engine 295.

Referring to FIG. 4B, an embodiment of a method 450 for managing themultiple-tier object index responsive to changes in size of storage usedfor the object cache is depicted. In brief overview, at step 451, thesize of the object index in memory is established to a predeterminedsize. The object index storing indexes to objects stored to one or moreportions of storage 128 having a predetermined size. The cache uses thefirst portion of the storage, or first tier, for storing objects smallerthan or equal to a first object size and a second portion of thestorage, or second tier, for storing objects larger than the firstobject size. At step 453, the method includes identifying a maximumnumber of objects the cache is allowed to store to each of the portionsof storage or tiers used by the cache 232. At step 455, the size of thestorage for storing cached objects is altered or changed to a secondpredetermined size while the size of memory for the object index remainsunchanged. At step 457, the cache manager 232 maintains the maximumnumber of objects the cache is allowed to store to the first portion ofthe storage 128 or first tier below a predetermined threshold. At step459, the cache manager 232 alters or maintains the object size andnumber of objects of one or more tiers of the cache in response to thechange in storage size.

In further details, at step 451, the appliance 200 or cache manager 232establishes a predetermined size of memory 122 for the object index 410.In one embodiment, the predetermined size of the object index in memoryis established in relation to or proportional to a size of the storageused for the object cache 420. In some embodiments, an initial size ofmemory allocated to the object index 410 may represent any ratio ofmemory to storage used by the cache, such as 10 MB, 20 MB or 30 MB ofmemory for each gigabyte of storage used by the cache. In otherembodiments, the cache manager 232 allocates a portion of memory for theobject index 410 based on the available memory in the device. In oneembodiment, the cache manager 232 allocates a percentage of availablememory to the object index 410, such as 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%,70%, 80% or 90%. In another embodiment, a user or system administratormay configure the size of memory for the object index 410 via a userinterface of the device 100 or cache manager 232. In yet anotherembodiment, the cache manager 232 uses the size of a memory element 122dedicated for storing the object index 410.

At step 451, the cache manager 232 establishes a first portion orstorage tier used by the cache for storing objects smaller than or equalto a first maximum object size 412. The cache manager 232 alsoestablishes a second portion or storage tier used by the cache forstoring objects larger than the first maximum object size. In oneembodiment, the cache manager 232 may establish and maintain two tiers.In another embodiment, the cache manager 232 may establish and maintainthree tiers. In other embodiments, the cache manager 232 may establishfour, five or six tiers. In some embodiments, the appliance 200 or cachemanager 232 may establish any granular number of tiers, object sizes,and number of objects desirable for the operation and performance of theappliance 200.

In some embodiments, the appliance 200 or cache manager 232 provides auser interface for a user or system administrator to establish thenumber of tiers, and the maximum object size and number of objects foreach tier. In other embodiments, the appliance 200 or cache manager 232is configured by default or as installed or shipped with a predeterminednumber of tiers and predetermined maximum object size and number ofobjects for each tier. In yet another embodiment, an application,program or agent performs an analysis on the network environment, systemenvironment, applications used by the system, the client and server, andnumber of objects used between clients and servers, and recommends thenumber of tiers, and the maximum object size and number of objects foreach tier, or the settings for each.

At step 453, the appliance 200 and/or cache manager 232 identifies orestablishes the number of objects the cache manager 232 may be allowedstore to each of the portions or tiers of the cache. In someembodiments, the cache manager 232 establishes a maximum object size412, 414, 416 and maximum number of objects 413, 415, 417 for aplurality of portions, or tiers of the cache. For example, in oneembodiment, the cache manager 232 may establish a maximum object size of10 KB 412 for the small objects 422 in the object cache 420. Further tothe example, the cache manager 232 may establish that the cache 232stores up to a maximum of 200,000 small objects 412 in the object cache420. In some embodiments, any object greater than the first maximumobject size is stored in the second tier of the cache. For example, ifthe object is greater than 10 KB, such as a 1M file, the object isstored as a medium object 424 in the object storage. In otherembodiments, if the object is greater than the first maximum object size412 or less than or equal to the second maximum object size 414, forexample, 10 MB, the cache manager 232 stores the object in the secondtier as a medium object 424. In yet another embodiment, the cachemanager 232 establishes a minimum object size for the first tier. Forexample, if an object is less than 1 KB, the cache manager 232 does notcache the object.

Likewise, based on the number of tiers and the corresponding objectsize, the cache manager 232 determines the size of the object and storesthe object accordingly to the appropriate tier. The cache manager 232tracks using any type and form of tracking mechanism, including objects,counters, variables or data structures, to track the number of objectsstored in each tier. If the number of objects stored to a tier reachesthe maximum number of objects for the tier, the cache manager 232 eitherskips storing the next object to the tier or replaces an old object instorage with a new object. In some embodiments, the cache manager 232may remove objects from the cache based on staleness, last access time,frequency of access or any other condition. In other embodiments, thecache manager 232 may refresh, update, maintain or remove objects fromthe cache in accordance with any one or more policies of a policy engine295.

In some embodiments, the cache manager 232 receives an object that has asize exceeding a maximum threshold of the cache, such as the nth maximumobject size 417. For example, the cache manager 232 may receive a 10 GBobject that is larger than the nth maximum object size setting of 1 GB.In one embodiment, the cache manager 232 may skip storing this object tocache. In another embodiment, the cache manager 232 may dynamicallyestablish another tier for storing objects greater than the nth maximumobject size 417. In some embodiments, the cache manager 232 may segmentthe object into multiple portions and store the portions in one or moreof the storage tiers according to the maximum object size of the tier.

At step 455, the storage used by or allocated to the object cache 420may be changed. In one embodiment, the storage 128 is replaced with asecond storage 128′ having a greater or smaller storage capacity. Insome embodiments, a second storage 128′ is added to the device 100 toincrease the storage capacity available for use as the object cache 420.In another embodiment, the appliance 200 or cache manager 232establishes or allocates a greater or smaller portion of storage 128 forthe object cache 420. In some embodiments, a user or administrator ofthe appliance 200 changes the size of storage allocated to use as theobject cache 420. In other embodiments, the cache manager or user maychange the size of one or each of the storage tiers. In yet anotherembodiment, a portion of storage 128 may become corrupted or otherwisenot useable for the object cache 420. In these embodiments, the storagecapacity of the storage 128 may be decreased.

In one embodiment, upon altering the size of the storage used for theobject cache 232, the size of memory 122 for the object index may bemaintained. For example, at step 451, a 10 MB object index 410 may beused for a 20 GB object store 420. The portion of storage 128 used forthe object cache 420 may be increased to 40 GB but the memory size ofthe object index 410 maintained at 10 MB. In another embodiment, uponaltering the size of the portion of storage 128 established for theobject cache 232, the size of memory 122 for the object index may bedecreased. For example, the size of memory for the object index 410 maybe decreased from 10 MB to 5 MB although the portion of storage 128 usedfor the object cache maintains the same or is increased.

In yet another embodiment, the size of memory 122 for the object indexmay be increased or decreased but not to the same proportions or ratiosto the increase or decrease of portion of the storage 128 or storagetiers used by or allocated to the object cache 420. For example, thesize of memory 122 for the object index 410 may be have been set to a 1MB to 1 GB ratio to the size of storage used for the object cache 420,such as 10 MB of memory to 10 GB of storage. The size of the storage forthe object cache 420 may be doubled to 20 GB while only increasing thesize of memory 122 for the object index 122 by a relatively smallerratio, such as to 2 MB. Likewise, the size of the storage allocated tothe object cache 420 may be reduced by a half to 5 GB while the size ofmemory 122 for the object index 122 is decreased by a higher ratio, suchas to 250 KB.

At step 457, the cache manager 232, in one embodiment, maintains themaximum number of objects 412 and/or maximum size of objects 413 below apredetermined threshold in response to altering storage size of theobject cache, such as the storage size of any tier. In one embodiment,although the storage size used by the cache has changed, the cachemanager 232 does not change the maximum number of objects 413 or maximumobject size 412 for the first tier. In another embodiment, the cachemanager 234 also does not change the maximum number of objects 413 ormaximum object size 414 for the second tier. In some embodiments, thecache manager 232 increases or decreases the object size 412 or numberof object 413 but maintains the increase or decrease within apredetermined threshold. For example, if the storage used for the objectcache 420 increased by a predetermined amount, such as 20%, the cachemanager 232 increases the object size 412 or number of objects 413 forthe first tier by no more than 20%.

In this manner, the cache manager 232 better leverages the object indexand object storage to those objects larger the smaller objects 422 withmore efficient use of memory. In some embodiments, the cache manager 232more efficiently utilizes the second and third tiers of the cachewithout increasing the memory usage or increasing the memory usage ofthe object index 410 in a manner corresponding directly to the size ofthe disk adjustment. As such, the appliance 200 or cache manager 232does not need to increase the memory size for the object index 410because the size of the storage has increased. Accordingly, the sameamount of memory for the object index 410 can be configured to supportany size of storage, or storage tiers, used for the object cache 420. Insome cases, this will reduce system or appliance upgrades maintenance,and configuration. A new disk can be added or to replace an old diskwithout changing the memory on the appliance or system. The techniquesdescribed herein also allow to use on-board memory and other types ofmemory not easily upgradeable or changeable. Furthermore, the device maymore efficiently support or allow the use of memory and storage by otherapplications, systems or resources while maintaining efficientperformance or use of the cache.

Depending on the size of the first maximum object size 412, the numberof smaller objects 422 stored in the object cache 420 may growsignificantly without using much more storage. For example, 100,000smaller objects of 10 kb or less take up less than 1 GB of storage 128.In some embodiments, however, the smaller cached objects 422 have alesser effect on reducing bandwidth and response time than the mediumobjects 424 or larger objects 426. That is, in some embodiments, theappliance 200 or cache manager 232 would improve the reduction ofnetwork bandwidth and/or further increase response time by having moreof the medium and larger objects stored in the cache to serve. Thus, inone embodiment, by maintaining or limiting the number of smaller objects422 or first tier objects stored in the cache as the storage isincreased, the appliance 200 or cache manager 232 has more storagecapacity for caching medium and larger objects. In some embodiments, bymaintaining or limiting the number of smaller objects 422 and mediumobjects stored in the cache as the storage is increased, the appliance200 or cache manager 232 has more storage capacity for caching andserving larger objects.

At step 459, the cache manager 232 may alter or maintain any of theobject sizes and number of objects for any of the tiers in response tothe change in storage size used by or allocated to the object cache 420.In some embodiments, a user or administrator of the appliance 200 orcache manager 232 may configure or specify different object sizes andnumber of objects for each tier. In one case, the user or administratormay establish a new tier or remove a tier. In other embodiments, thecache manager 232 is designed and constructed to change the object sizesand number of objects for the tiers based on the change in the size ofthe storage for cache, the current number of objects and size of objectsin each tier, the remaining available memory and/or storage, or anyoperations characteristics, such as frequency of access, number ofcached hits per tier, number of missed cached opportunities and thenumber of concurrent users or connections.

The multiple tiered caching and index system described herein providesgreat flexibility and granularity in determining and managing memory andstorage for caching objects to obtain desired performance based on thesystem's memory and disk specifications. Although generally describedabove in connection with an appliance 200 of FIG. 4A, the method 450 andthe multiple tiered cache system may be deployed on any node in anetwork, such as a client 102, server 106, a second appliance 200′ oranother type of appliance 205′.

Referring now to FIG. 4C, another embodiment of a method 460 formanaging the multiple-tier object index responsive to changes in size ofmemory used for the object cache is depicted. In brief overview, at step451, the size of the object index in memory is established to apredetermined size. The object index storing indexes to objects storedto tiers of storage used by the cache. The cache uses the first portionof the storage, or first tier, for storing objects smaller than or equalto a first object size and a second portion of the storage, or secondtier, for storing objects larger than the first object size. At step453, the method includes identifying a maximum number of objects thecache is allowed to store to each of the portions of storage or tiersused by the cache 232. At step 465, the size of the memory for used forobject indexes is altered or changed to a second size while the size ofstorage used by the cache remains unchanged. At step 467, the cachemanager 232 maintains the maximum number of objects the cache is allowedto store to the first portion of the storage or first tier below apredetermined threshold. At step 469, the cache manager 232 may alter ormaintains the object size and number of objects of one or more tiers ofthe cache in response to the change in memory size.

In further details, at step 451 and discussed above in conjunction withFIG. 4B, the appliance 200 or cache manager 232 establishes apredetermined size of memory 122 for the object index 410. In oneembodiment, the predetermined size of memory to be used by the cache isestablished in relation to or proportional to a size of the storage usedfor the object cache 420. In some embodiments, the size of memoryallocated to the object index 410 may represent any ratio of memory tostorage used by the cache. In other embodiments, the cache manager 232allocates a portion of memory for the object index 410 based on theavailable memory in the device. In some embodiments, a user or networkadministrator determines the size of memory to be used by the cache 232.For example, a user may configure the cache manager 232 to use apredetermined amount of memory.

As also discussed above in conjunction with FIG. 4B, a step 451, thecache manager 232 establishes a first portion or storage tier used bythe cache for storing objects smaller than or equal to a first maximumobject size 412. The cache manager 232 also establishes a second portionor storage tier used by the cache for storing objects larger than thefirst maximum object size. In one embodiment, the cache manager 232 mayestablish and maintain two, three or four or more tiers with any objectsizes and number of objects desirable for the operation and performanceof the cache 232.

At step 453 and as also discussed above in conjunction with FIG. 4B, theappliance 200 and/or cache manager 232 identifies or establishes thenumber of objects the cache manager 232 may be allowed store to each ofthe portions or tiers of the cache. In some embodiments, the cachemanager 232 establishes a maximum object size 412, 414, 416 and maximumnumber of objects 413, 415, 417 for a plurality of portions, or tiers ofthe cache.

At step 465, the size of memory used by or allocated to the cache and/orthe object index 410 may be changed. In one embodiment, the memory 122is replaced with a second storage 122′ having a greater or smallermemory capacity. In some embodiments, a second memory element 121′ isadded to the device 100 to increase the memory capacity available foruse as the object index 410. In another embodiment, the appliance 200 orcache manager 232 establishes or allocates a greater or smaller portionof memory 122 for use by the cache. In some embodiments, a user oradministrator of the appliance 200 changes the size of memory allocatedto use for the object index 410. In yet another embodiment, a portion ofmemory 122 may become corrupted or otherwise not useable by the cacheand/or object index. In these embodiments, the memory capacity availablefor the object index 410 may be decreased.

In one embodiment, upon altering the size of the memory used for theobject cache 232, the size of storage for the object cache 420 may bemaintained. For example, at step 451, a 10 MB object index 410 may beused for a 20 GB object store 420. The portion of memory 122 used forthe object index 410 may be increased to 20 GB but the storage size ofthe object cache 420 maintained at 20 MB. In another embodiment, uponaltering the size of the portion of memory 122 established for the cache232, the size of storage for the object cache 420 may be decreased. Forexample, the size of storage for the object storage 420 may be decreasedfrom 20 MB to 15 MB although the portion of memory used for the objectindex 410 maintains the same, is increased or decreased.

In yet another embodiment, the size of storage used for or allocated tothe object cache 420 may be increased or decreased but not to the sameproportions or ratios to the increase or decrease of the size of memoryused by or allocated to the object index 410. For example, the size ofmemory used for the object index 410 may be set to a 1 MB to 1 GB ratioto the size of storage used for the object cache 420, such as 10 MB ofmemory to 10 GB of storage. The size of the memory used for the objectindex 410 may double from 20 MB to 40 MB while only increasing the sizeof storage for the object cache 420 by a relatively smaller ratio, suchas to 1.2 GB. Likewise, the size of the memory allocated to the objectindex 410 may be reduced by a half to 5 MB while the size of storage forthe object cache 420 is decreased by a higher ratio, such as to 250 MB.

At step 467, the cache manager 232, in one embodiment, maintains themaximum number of objects 412 and/or maximum size of objects 413 below apredetermined threshold in response to altering memory size used by theobject cache. In one embodiment, although the amount of memory used bythe object index 410 has changed, the cache manager 232 does not changethe maximum number of objects 413 or maximum object size 412 for thefirst tier. In another embodiment, the cache manager 234 may not alsochange the maximum number of objects 413 or maximum object size 414 forthe second tier in response to the change in memory used by the cache.In some embodiments, the cache manager 232 increases or decreases theobject size 412 or number of object 413 but maintains the increase ordecrease within a predetermined threshold. For example, if the memoryused for the object index 410 increased by a predetermined amount, suchas 20%, the cache manager 232 may increase the object size 412 or numberof objects 413 for the first tier by no more than 20%.

In this manner, the cache manager 232 better leverages the object indexand object storage to cache object with more efficient use of storage.In some embodiments, the cache manager 232 more efficiently utilizes thesecond and third tiers of the cache without changing the storage sizeused by the cache to correspond to the change in memory size used by thecache. As such, the appliance 200 or cache manager 232 does not need toincrease the storage size used for the object cache 430 because the sizeof memory used by the object index 410 has increased. Accordingly, thesame amount of storage for the object cache 420 can be configured tosupport any size of the object index 410, or memory used thereof. Insome cases, this will reduce system or appliance upgrades maintenance,and configuration. A new memory element can be added or memory replacedwithout changing the storage on the appliance or system Furthermore, thedevice may more efficiently support or allow the use of storage by otherapplications, systems or resources while maintaining efficientperformance or use of the cache.

At step 469, the cache manager 232 may alter or maintain any of theobject sizes and number of objects for any of the tiers in response tothe change in memory size used by or allocated to the object index 410.In some embodiments, a user or administrator of the appliance 200 orcache manager 232 may configure or specify different object sizes andnumber of objects for each tier. In one case, the user or administratormay establish a new tier or remove a tier. In other embodiments, thecache manager 232 is designed and constructed to change the object sizesand number of objects for the tiers based on the change in the size ofthe memory used by the cache, the current number of objects and size ofobjects in each tier, the remaining available memory and/or storage, orany operations characteristics, such as frequency of access, number ofcached hits per tier, number of missed cached opportunities and thenumber of concurrent users or connections.

Referring now to FIG. 4D, an embodiment of a method of storing objectsin a cache 420 using multiple storage tiers 422-426 based on the size ofobjects and maintaining a number of smaller objects stored to the cachewithin a predetermined threshold is depicted. In brief overview, at step471, a size of a storage used for a cache 420 to store cached objects isestablished, where the cache 420 uses a first portion of the storage 422for storing objects smaller than or equal to a first threshold objectsize 412 and a second portion of the storage 424 for storing objectslarger than the first threshold object size 412 The number of objects413 the cache 420 is allowed to store to the first portion of thestorage 422 is identified at step 473. At step 475, the cache manager232 receives an object for caching. At step 477, the cache manager 232determines in which portion of the storage 420, the first portion 422 orthe second portion 424, to store the object based on a size of theobject. At step 479, the cache manager 232 may also maintain the numberof objects 413 the cache 420 is allowed to store to the first portion ofthe storage 422 below a predetermined threshold.

In further detail, at step 471, the appliance 200 or cache managerestablishes a size of a storage to use for a cache 420 to store cachedobjects. The cache 232 uses a first portion of the storage 422 forstoring objects smaller than or equal to a first threshold object size412 and a second portion of the storage 424 for storing objects largerthan the first threshold object size 412. In some embodiments, the cache420 resides on a client 102. In other embodiments, the cache 420 resideson an appliance 200. In one embodiment, the size of storage to be usedby the cache is established in relation to or proportional to a size ofthe memory used for the object index 420. In some embodiments, the sizeof storage allocated to the object cache 420 may represent any ratio ofmemory to storage used by the cache. In other embodiments, the cachemanager 232 allocates a portion of storage for the object cache 420based on the available storage in the device. In some embodiments, auser or network administrator determines the size of storage to be usedby the cache 232. For example, a user may configure the cache manager232 to use a predetermined amount of storage.

At step 473, in one embodiment, the appliance or cache manager alsoidentifies a number of objects 413 the cache 420 is allowed to store tothe first portion of the storage 422. As also discussed above inconjunction with FIG. 4B, the appliance 200 and/or cache manager 232identifies or establishes the number of objects the cache manager 232may be allowed store to each of the portions or tiers of the cache. Insome embodiments, the cache manager 232 establishes a maximum objectsize 412, 414, 416 and maximum number of objects 413, 415, 417 for aplurality of portions, or tiers of the cache. In some embodiments, thecache manager 232 counts the number of current objects stored in thefirst portion of the storage 422. In other embodiments, the cachemanager 232 tracks the number of free space in the first portion of thestorage 422. In some other embodiments, the appliance 200 calculates themaximum number of objects allowed in the first portion of the storage413 in response to the amount of storage space in the first portion ofstorage 422.

At step 475, the appliance or cache manager intercepts or otherwisereceives an object for caching. In some embodiments, the applianceintercepts the object from a page communication between a client and aserver. In other embodiments, the appliance receives the object from theclient agent 120. In some embodiments, the cache manager receives theobject from a second appliance 200′. In still other embodiments, theappliance receives the object from the server 106.

At step 477, the appliance or cache manger determines in which portionor tier of the object cache 420 to store the object based on a size ofthe object. In some embodiments, the method determines that the size ofthe object is smaller than or equal to the first threshold object size412 and stores the object in the first portion of the object cache 422.In other embodiments, the method determines that the size of the objectis larger than the first threshold object size 412 and stores the objectin the second portion of the object cache.

At step 479, the appliance or cache manager also maintains the number ofobjects 413 the object cache 420 is allowed to store to the firstportion of the object cache 422 below a predetermined threshold. In someembodiments, the cache manager 232 determines the number of objectsstored to the first tier 422 of the object cache has reached thepredetermined threshold 413. In other embodiments, the cache manager 232does not store the received object in the cache 420 based on thedetermination that the number of objects stored to the first portion ofthe storage 422 has reached the predetermined threshold 413. In stillother embodiments, the cache manager 232 removes a previously cachedobject from the cache 420 based on the determination that the number ofobjects stored to the first portion of the storage 422 has reached thepredetermined threshold 413, and stores the received object in the cache420.

In another embodiment, the appliance or cache manager establishes apredetermined size of the second portion of storage 424 for storingobjects larger than the first threshold object size 412. In someembodiments, the appliance or cache manager identifies a secondthreshold object size for storing objects in the first portion of thestorage 424. In some other embodiments, the appliance or cache managerreceives a second object for caching, and, in response to determiningthat the size of the second object is greater than the second thresholdobject size and less than the first threshold object size 412, the cachemanager stores the second object in the first portion of the storage422. In other embodiments, the appliance or cache manager receives asecond object for caching, and, in response to determining a size of thesecond object is less than the second threshold object size, the cachemanager does not store the second object to the cache 420.

In another embodiment, the appliance or cache manager establishes a sizeof memory 122 used by the cache for indexing 410 objects stored to thestorage of the cache 420. In some embodiments, the cache managermaintains the size of memory 122 used by the cache 232 for indexingobjects in response to a change in the size of the storage used by thecache 232.

Referring now to FIG. 4E, an embodiment of a method of storing objectsin a cache using multiple storage tiers based on the size of objects andstoring objects larger than an object threshold size to a portion ofstorage used by the cache is shown. In brief overview, the method atstep 481 includes establishing a predetermined size for a first portionof storage used by a cache 232 for storing objects larger than a firstthreshold object size 412, the cache 232 storing objects smaller thanthe first threshold object size 412 to a remaining portion of storageused by the cache. At step 483, appliance or cache manager intercepts orotherwise receives an object for caching. At step 485, the cache manager232 determines a size of the object is greater than a first thresholdobject size 412. In response to the determination, at step 487 the cachemanager also stores the object in the first portion, or tier, ofstorage.

In further details, at step 481, the appliance or cache managerestablishes a predetermined size for a first portion of storage used bya cache 232 for storing objects larger than a first threshold objectsize 412, the cache 232 storing objects smaller than the first thresholdobject size 412 to a remaining portion of storage used by the cache 422.In some embodiments, the cache manager maintains a number of the objectsthe cache 232 is allowed to store to the remaining portion of thestorage below a predetermined threshold 412. In some other embodiments,the cache manager 232 determines the number of objects stored to theremaining portion of the storage has reached the predeterminedthreshold. The cache manager 232 may not storing a second receivedobject smaller than the first threshold object size 412 to the remainingportion of the storage used by the cache. In some embodiments, the cachemanager establishes a size of memory used by the cache 232 for holdingindexes to objects stored to the object cache. In still otherembodiments, the cache manager 232 maintains the size of memory used bythe cache for indexing objects in response to a change in the size ofthe first portion of storage, or tier, used by the cache 232.

In another embodiment, the appliance or cache manager establishes asecond predetermined size for the remaining portion of the storage usedby the cache 232 to store objects smaller than the first thresholdobject size 412. In some embodiments, the cache manager determineswhether the available space of first portion of storage 422 used by thecache is either at or near the predetermined size. If the availablespace of first portion of storage used by the cache 232 is at or nearthe predetermined size, the cache manager may increase the predeterminedsize of the first portion of storage by allocating space from theremaining portion of storage to the first portion of storage.

At step 483, the appliance or cache manager receives an object forcaching. In some embodiments, the appliance 200 receives the object fromthe client agent 120. In other embodiments, the appliance 200 interceptsor receives the object from the server 106. In another embodiment, theappliance intercepts the object, as the object is communicated from theclient 102 to the server 106. In some other embodiments, the applianceintercepts the object, as the object is communicated from the server tothe client.

At step 485, the cache manager determines whether the size of the objectis greater than a first threshold object size 412. The cache manager mayidentifying the received object's size from header information of theobject. In other embodiments, the cache manager 232 computes the size ofthe object. In one embodiment, the cache manager 232 estimates the sizeof the object. In another embodiment, the appliance 200 or cache manager232 receives the object's size via the network stack, such as via anyAPI. The cache manager may compare the object's determined size with thefirst threshold object size 412

In response to the determination, at step 487, if the object's size isless than the first threshold object size, the cache manager stores theobject in the first portion or tier of storage 422. If the cache managerdetermines that the object's size is greater than the first thresholdobject size, the method stores the object in the second portion or tierof storage 424.

In one embodiment, the cache manager receives a second object, anddetermines that the size of the second object is less than the firstthreshold object size 412. In some embodiments, the cache manager storesthe second object to the remaining portion of storage used by the cache232 if space is available to store the second object. In otherembodiments, the cache manager determines the remaining portion ofstorage used by the cache 232 does not have space available to store thesecond object. In some embodiments, the cache manager does not store thesecond object to the cache 420. In still other embodiments, the cachemanger removes a previously cached object from the remaining portion ofstorage used by cache 232 and stores the second object in the remainingportion of storage.

Referring now to FIG. 4F, an embodiment of a method of managing the sizeof objects stored in a cache using multiple storage tiers based on thesize of objects is depicted. The method includes allocating a portion ofstorage used by the cache for storing larger objects. In brief overviewat step 491, the size of memory used by a cache 232 is established forholding indexes 410 to objects stored to in the object cache. Thestorage used by the cache has a predetermined storage size. At step 492,the cache manager establishes a first predetermined size of a firstportion of a storage used by the cache for storing objects larger than afirst threshold object size. At step 492, the cache 232 uses a secondportion of the storage of the cache to store objects smaller than thefirst threshold object size. At step 495, the size of memory or thestorage size used by the cache 232 may be changed or altered. At step497, the cache manager may also maintain the first predetermined size ofthe first portion of the storage used by the cache 232 in response tochanging either the size of memory or the storage 128 size used by thecache.

In further detail, at step 491, the appliance or cache managerestablishes the size of memory used by a cache 232 for holding indexes410 to objects. The object indexes correspond to objects stored to anobject storage. The cache manager may establish the size of memory basedon the available memory of the device. In some embodiments, the cachemanager may establish the size of memory based on the size of storageavailable to the cache.

At step 493, the appliance or cache manager establishes a firstpredetermined size of a first portion of a storage used by a cache 232for storing objects larger than a first threshold object size. The cache232 may use a second portion of the storage to store objects smallerthan the first threshold object size. In some embodiments, the cachemanager identifies the number of objects the cache 232 is allowed tostore to the first portion of the storage

At step 495, the size of memory 122 or the storage size used by thecache 232 is changed. In some embodiments, the size of memory used bythe cache is changed. In other embodiments, the size of storage used bythe cache is changed. In another embodiment, the size of storage andsize of memory used by the cache is changes.

At step 499, the cache manager may also maintain the size of the firstportion of the storage of the cache 232 in response to changing eitherthe size of memory or the storage size used by the cache. In someembodiments, in response to changing either the size of memory or thestorage size used by the cache 232, the cache manager maintains thenumber of objects the cache 232 is allowed to store to the first portionof the storage. In other embodiments, in response to changing either thesize of memory 128 or the storage size used by the cache 232, the cachemanager 232 adjusts the first threshold object size. In still otherembodiments, the cache manager adjusts the number of objects the cache232 is allowed to store to the second portion of the storage whilemaintaining the first predetermined size of the first portion of thestorage. In some other embodiments, the cache manager adjusts the numberof objects the cache is allowed to store to the first portion of thestorage in response to changes in either the size of the memory or thestorage size used by the cache. In other embodiments, the cache manageradjusts the number of objects the cache 232 is allowed to store to thesecond portion of the disk relative to an amount of change to either thesize of the memory 128 or the storage size used by the cache.

In another embodiment, the cache manager establishes a second thresholdobject size for objects the cache 232 is allowed to store to the secondportion of the storage. The second threshold object size may be smallerthan the first threshold object size. In some embodiments, the cache 420includes a third portion of the storage 128 established for storingobjects smaller than the second threshold object size. In otherembodiments, the cache manager adjusts the second threshold object sizein response to changes in either the size of memory or the storage sizeused by the cache.

E. Systems and Methods for Providing Security and Reliability Techniquesin Proxyiny Connections

Referring now to FIGS. 5A and 5B, systems and methods for an appliance200 to provide security and/or reliability to proxying a connection,such as a transport layer connection, are depicted. In one embodiment,the appliance 200 using the tagged SYN and SYN-ACK packet techniquesdescribed above in connection with the automatic LAN/WAN detectionfunctionality can defer accepting proxying a connection request untilreceipt of an acknowledgement that the connection has been established.Instead of accepting responsibility to proxy or accelerate a transportlayer connection upon receiving the initial SYN packet from a requesterof the connection, the appliance 200 described herein may deferresponsibility for the connection until the server's SYN-ACK responsepacket is received and/or an end-to-end connection with the requestorhas been established. This technique provides reliability and securityadvantages. If the server would refuse to accept the connectionrequested by the client, then the server may refuse to accept aconnection from the appliance 200 on behalf of the client 102. If theserver is not available to accept the client's connection request, thenthe appliance should not accept responsibility for proxying oraccelerating a connection that will not be established or not bereliable.

This technique can also be applied to the application or session levelsessions and connections as well as cached objects. In some embodiments,the appliance 200 can defer proxying or accelerating an application orsession level connection request until a server accepts the applicationor session level connection and/or an end-to-end session has beenestablished. For example, the appliance 200 may defer the protocolaccelerator 234 from accelerating HTTP application traffic until an HTTPsession been established with a web server 106.

In other embodiments, the appliance 200 may defer serving objects storedin a cache 232 until the appliance 200 determines the server providingthe object would serve the object to the client. The appliance 200 maydefer access to cached data by forwarding requests to the origin serverinstead and waiting until the appliance 2002 determines a successfultransfer of the object has occurred or will occur. For example, theappliance 200 may serve the object from the cache upon receiving an “OK”response. In another example, the appliance 200 may receive a“Forbidden” or “Authentication Required” or “Gateway Timeout” or “NotFound” message and determine not to serve the object from the cache 232.In this way, the appliance 200 only serve object that server wouldauthorize for transfer to the client. Also, if the server is notavailable to serve the object, this technique prevents the appliance 200from serving an object which the server may not be available to server.

Referring to method 500 of FIG. 5B in view of the bottom portion of thediagram of FIG. 5A, an embodiment of a technique for deferringresponsibility for proxying and/or accelerating a connection isdepicted. In brief overview, at step 505, the appliance 200 intercepts aconnection request from a client 102 to a server 106. At step 510, theappliance 200 identifies the connection request and forwards the requestto the destination, such as a server 106. At step 515, the appliance 200defers acceptance of proxying and/or accelerating the connection untilreceiving a response from the server 106. At step 520, the appliance 200determines whether to proxy and/or accelerate the connection based uponthe response received from the server 106. At step 525, the appliance200 proxies and/or accelerates the connection if the server accepts theconnection or an end-to-end connection is established. At step 530, theappliance 200 may not proxy and/or accelerate the connection if theserver does not accept the connection or an end-to-end connection isestablished.

In further details, at step 505, the appliance 200 may intercept orotherwise receive any type and form of connection or session request.Although generally referred herein as a connection request, for example,a transport layer connection, a connection may include session layerconnections or application layer connections, which may also be referredto as sessions. In one embodiment, the appliance 200 receives atransport layer connection request from a client 102 to a server 106. Inanother embodiment, the appliance 200 intercepts or receives anapplication or session layer connection request of a client 102 to aserver 106. For example, in one embodiment, the appliance 200 interceptsan ICA or RDP session request to a server 106, such as via applicationdelivery system 290 as depicted in FIG. 2A. In another example, theappliance 200 intercepts an HTTP session request to a sever 106, such asa web server. In some embodiments, the appliance 200 intercepts theconnection request transparently to the client 102 and/or server 106. Inone embodiment, the appliance 200 is a transparent proxy or transparentintermediary between the client 102 and the server 106. In otherembodiments, the appliance 200 is a known proxy to the client 102 andthe client 102 transmits the request to the appliance 200.

At step 510, the appliance 200 identifies the intercepted communicationfrom the client 102 as a connection request. In some embodiments, theappliance 200 determines the client 102 has transmitted a SYN packet torequest a transport layer connection with a server 106. In otherembodiments, the appliance 200 determines from an application or sessionlayer of a network packet from the client 102 that the client isrequesting to establish an application session with a server 106. In oneembodiment, the appliance 200 determines from a session or applicationlayer of the network packet that the client 102 is requesting an ICA orRDP session with a server 106. In another embodiment, the appliance 200determines from a session layer of the network packet that the client102 is requesting a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) or Transport LayerSecurity (TLS) session with a server. In yet another embodiment, theappliance 200 determines form an application layer of the network packetthat the client 102 is requesting to establish an HTTP based sessionwith an HTTP server.

At step 515, the appliance 200 defers performing any proxying oraccelerating function of the appliance on the request or the connectionof the request. The appliance 200 forwards the intercepted communicationto the intended destination, or server 106. The appliance 200 may trackthe request and/or establishment of the requested connection in any typeand form of data structure or table, such as a connection table. In someembodiments, the appliance 200 tracks whether or not a response to theforwarded request is received from the server 106. For example, in someembodiments, the server 106 may be down and the request times out.

In one embodiment, the appliance 200 defers proxying and/or accelerationthe connection request only for a first connection request from a useror client. In other embodiments, the appliance 200 defers proxyingand/or accelerating the connection for each connection request from auser or client. In yet other embodiments, the appliance defers acceptingthe connection for proxying or accelerating if the request is receivedfrom a client or user that has not requested the connection before. Instill further embodiments, the appliance defers proxying or acceleratingthe connection if the request is received from the same user or clientor a different user or client exceeds a predetermined time threshold ofa previous connection request. In yet another embodiment, the appliancedefers proxying or accelerating a connection request between a clientand server previously proxied or accelerated by the appliance upondetection of a security or reliability issue. For example, the appliance200 may detect the server 106 was unavailable at a time betweenconnection requests. In another example, the appliance 200 may havedetected a security breach or violation to the server from the sameclient or another client.

At step 520, the appliance 200 determines whether to proxy and/oraccelerate the connection based upon the response received from theserver 106. In one embodiment, the appliance 200 receives a responsefrom the server indicating the server accepts or has accepted theclient's connection request. For example, in the case of a transportlayer connection request, the appliance 200 receives or intercepts aSYN-ACK packet transmitted by the server 106 to the client 102. Inanother example, the appliance 200 receives or intercepts an HTTP OKmessage in response to a session request. In a further example, theappliance 200 receives or intercepts the next expected response in amultiple transaction handshake between a client and server, such as forSSL. In some embodiments, the appliance 200 intercepts a response fromthe client of the server's response to the client's connection request.In one embodiment, the appliance 200 determines to accept responsibilityfor the connection only if the client 102 accepts the server's responseto the client's connection request.

In some embodiments, the appliance 200 receives a response from theserver 106 that the server does not accept the connection. In oneembodiment, the appliance 200 receives a message indicating there was anerror with the connection request. In another embodiment, the appliance200 receives a message from the server 106 indicating that the server106 does not authorize a connection from the client 102 or a user of theclient 102. In some embodiments, the appliance 200 receives a messagefrom the server 106 indicating that the server requires authenticationof the client or user of the client 102 before establishing theconnection. In yet another embodiment, the appliance 200 receives amessage that the server 106 is too busy to accept the connection, hasreached a maximum number of connections or is otherwise not allowing anymore connections.

In still further embodiments, the appliance 200 receives a networkpacket or message indicating the request to the server has timed out. Inanother embodiment, the appliance 200 receives a network packet ormessage indicating the server is not reachable or is not routable via anetwork. In yet another embodiment, the appliance 200 does not receiveany response from the server to the request. In one embodiment, theappliance 200 determines the request to the server has not be beenresponded by the server within a predetermined time threshold, and thus,identifies the server as down or otherwise unavailable.

If the appliance 200 receives an indication the connection or sessionhas been accepted by the server or that an end-to-end connection orsession between the client and server has been established, then, atstep 525, the appliance 200, in one embodiment, accepts responsibilityto proxy the connection. In some embodiments, the appliance 200determines to perform any acceleration or proxying technique on theconnection. For example, the appliance 200 may perform any of the flowcontrol, transport control protocol optimization, acceleration, thecompression and/or caching techniques described herein. In otherembodiments, the appliance 200 may perform a first one or more proxyingor acceleration technique of a plurality of techniques before receivingthe server's acceptance of the connection or session or detecting anend-to-end connection or session has been established. Then, upondetecting the acceptance or establishment of the connection or thesession, the appliance 200 may perform a second set of one or moreadditional proxying or acceleration techniques of the plurality oftechniques.

If the appliance 200 receives an indication the connection or sessionhas not been accepted by the server or that an end-to-end connection orsession between the client and server has not been established, then theappliance 200, at step 530, may determine not to accept responsibilityfor proxying a connection or session between the client and server 106.In some embodiments, the appliance 200 continues transparently tointercept and forward communications between the client and the serverwithout performing any functionality to the intercepted communications.In one embodiment, the appliance 200 may perform a first one or moreproxying or acceleration techniques on the connection or session untilreceipt from the server that the server has not accepted the connectionor session. In response, the appliance 200 may either stop performingthe first ser of one or more proxying/acceleration techniques ordetermine not to perform any additional proxying or accelerationtechniques.

Referring now to method 550 of FIG. 5B in view of the top portion of thediagram of FIG. 5A, an embodiment of a technique for deferring serving acached object until security and/or reliability of serving the objectcan be can be determined from the server. In brief overview, at step555, the appliance 200 intercepts or otherwise receives a request for anobject from a client 102 to a server 106. At step 560, the appliance 200determines the object is stored in a cache, such as a cache 232 of theappliance. At step 565, the appliance 200 defers providing the objectfrom the cache until receiving a response for the object forwarded bythe appliance to the server 106. At step 570, the appliance 200determines whether to server the object from the cache based upon theresponse received from the server 106. At step 575, the appliance 200determines to the serve the client the cached object. At step 580, theappliance 200 determines not to serve the object from the cache.

In further details, at step 555, the appliance 200 may intercept orotherwise receive any type and form of request for an object from aserver. In one embodiment, the appliance 200 intercepts a transportlayer network packet having a payload identifying a request for anobject. In another embodiment, the appliance 200 intercepts applicationlayer network traffic and identifies a request for an object in theapplication layer data. For example, in some embodiments, the appliance200 intercepts network packets and determines that the network packetsinclude an HTTP request for an object. In other embodiments, theappliance 200 may receive a request from the client 102 for an object ina cache, such as the cache 232 of the appliance 200.

At step 560, the appliance 200 determines the object identified by therequest is stored in a cache. In one embodiment, the appliance 200identifies, parses, extracts or otherwise determines a name oridentifier of the object of the request, such as the uniform resourcelocator of the request. In some embodiments, the appliance 200 uses anindex comprising a hash of the name or identifier of the object todetermine if the object exists in the cache. In one embodiment, thecache index may be maintained in memory while the cached object isstored on a disk of the appliance 200. In other embodiments, the cachemanager 232 determines if the object exists in the cache by a query orany other means the cache manager uses for tracking the location orexistence of object in a cache. In some embodiments, the cache 232resides on the appliance 200. In other embodiments, the cache 232 islocated on another device 100, such as an appliance 200′, 205 or server106. In further embodiments, the appliance 200 may transmit a message orrequest to a cache manager on the appliance or another device 100 todetermine if the object exists or is located in the cache.

At step 565, the appliance 200 defers providing the object from thecache until receiving a response for the object forwarded by theappliance to the server 106. In one embodiment, although the object islocated in the cache, the appliance 200 forwards the request for theobject to the intended destination or server 106. In some embodiments,the appliance 200 waits for a response to the request from the serverbefore serving the object located in the cache or before deciding toserve the object found in the cache. In another embodiment, theappliance 200 does not forward the client's request but insteadgenerates a second request or packet for a status of the object, headerinformation of the object or a conditional request for the object. Instill other embodiments, the appliance 200 generates a second request orpacket to determine if the server is available, reachable or otherwiseable to server the object.

In some embodiments, the appliance 200 defers serving the object fromthe cache only for the first request for the object from a user or aclient. In other embodiments, the appliance 200 defers serving thecached object for each request from a user or client. In yet otherembodiments, the appliance defers serving the cached object only if therequest is received from a client or user that has not requested theobject before. In still further embodiments, the appliance defersserving the cached object if the request is received from the same useror client or a different user or client after expiration of apredetermined time threshold of a previous request for the object. Inyet another embodiment, the appliance defers serving a cached object toa client to which the appliance previously served the same object orupon request of a different object if the appliance detects or hasdetected a security or reliability issue. For example, the appliance 200may defer serving a cached object if the appliance has detected theserver 106 was unavailable at a time between object requests. In anotherexample, the appliance 200 may defer serving a cached if the appliancehas detected a security breach or violation to the server from the sameclient or another client.

At step 570, the appliance 200 determines whether to serve the objectfrom the cache based upon the response received from the server 106. Ifthe server provides a response indicating the server would transfer theobject to the client, is available to the serve the object, orauthorizes or allows the client or user of the client to receive theobject, then at step 575, the appliance 200 serves the object from thecache in response to the client's request. If the server provides noresponse or a response indicate the server is not available, the serverwould not transfer the object to the client, or the server does notallow or authorize the client or user of the client to receive theobject, then at step 580, the appliance 200 does not serve the objectfrom the cache in response to the client's request.

In one embodiment of step 575, the appliance 200 receives a portion ofthe transfer of the object to the client indicating that the server istransmitting the object to the client. Upon receipt or interception ofthis portion of the transfer, the appliance 200 may respond to theclient's request with the object stored in the cache. In someembodiments, upon intercepting or receiving an HTTP OK indicator of anHTTP object transfer of an HTTP object request, the appliance 200transmits a response to the client's request using the object stored incache instead of the object currently being received by the appliance200. For example, the protocol accelerator 234 of the networkoptimization engine 250 may be HTTP aware to identify an HTTP transferof the object, including any leading header or status information. Inanother embodiment, the appliance 200 waits for a complete transfer ofthe object from the server to be intercepted or received by theappliance 200. For example, the appliance 200 may wait for the completetransfer of the object upon a second request for the object or a requestfor the object after a predetermined time threshold. In one embodiment,upon a complete or successful transfer of the object received by theappliance, the appliance 200 responds to the client's request with thecached object. In some embodiments, the appliance 200 responds to theclient's request with the object received from the server 106. Inanother embodiment, the appliance 200 responds to the client's requestwith the cached object and updates the cached object based on the objectreceived from the server.

In some embodiments, the appliance 200 receives a response indicatingthe server is available or the server is reachable on the network. Uponreceipt of such a response, the appliance 200 in one embodiment servesthe object from the cache in response to the client's request. Inanother embodiment, the appliance 200 may receive a response from aconditional request for the object that the object has not changed. Uponreceipt of this response, in another embodiment, the appliance 200transmits a response to the client's request with the cached object. Insome embodiments, the appliance 200 may receive a response from aconditional request for the object that the object has changed and theresponse includes an updated version of the object. Upon receipt of thisresponse, in other embodiments, the appliance 200 may transmit aresponse to the client's request with the cached object or with theupdated version of the object. In still other embodiments, the appliance200 may forward the server's response to the client without the cachedobject. In yet other embodiments, the appliance 200 may forward theserver's response to the client with the cached object.

At step 580, the appliance 200 determines not to serve the object fromthe cache. In one embodiment, the server 106 transmits a response thatthe client or user of the client is not allowed or authorized to receivethe object. In some embodiments, the server transmits a response thatthe client or user of the client requires authentication beforereceiving the object. In some embodiments, the server 106 transmits aresponse that the server no longer has the object or the object is nolonger valid. In still other embodiments, the server 106 does not send aresponse or otherwise the appliance 200 determines the request to theserver for the object or status of the object has timed out. In anotherembodiment, the appliance 200 receives a response indicating the serveris not available or is not reachable. In other embodiments, theappliance 200 receives a response indicating the server is too busy toserver the object or is not accepting any more requests at this time. Inany of these embodiments, the appliance 200 may choose not to serve theobject from the cache in response to the client's request. In someembodiments, the appliance 200 forwards the server's response to theclient 102 instead of the object from the cache. In one embodiment, theappliance 200 via cache manager 232 removes the object from the cache.In another embodiment, the appliance 200 via cache manager 232 expiresthe object in the cache.

Any of the techniques or portions thereof, of method 500 and 550described above may be performed together in the same appliance 200 orin a plurality of appliances acting in conjunction or cooperation witheach other. In some cases, one appliance 200 may perform method 500while a second appliance 200′ may perform method 550.

Furthermore, the determination of proxying or accelerating a connectionor for caching objects in method 500 or method 550 may be identified,specified or configured via a one or more policies of a policy engine295 of the appliance 200 or server 106. For example, the policy engine295 may specify the type or content of server responses or otherconditions for which the appliance 200 should proxy or accelerate aconnection or serve a cached object.

In yet other embodiments, the appliance 200 may make a determination onproxying, accelerating or caching in accordance with the techniques ofmethods 500 and 550 based on information from any end point detectionand authorization. For example, as described in connection with FIG. 3,a collection agent 302, or client agent 120, may transmit a variety ofinformation identifying a status, condition, operation, attribute,profile or characteristic of the client 102. The appliance 200 maydetermine when and how to defer and accept to proxy, or accelerate aconnection or when and how to defer and server a cached object inaccordance with the techniques of method 500 and 550 based on this endpoint detection information. Additionally, the appliance 200 may use acombination of policies and end point detection information to determinewhen and how to defer and accept to proxy and/or accelerate a connectionor when and how to defer and serve a cached object.

F. Systems and Methods of Performing Parallel Revalidation of CachedObjects

Referring now to FIGS. 6A and 6B, systems and methods for performing atechnique referred to as parallel revalidation are depicted. Thisparallel revalidation technique minimizes the problem of servingoutdated data in the cache considered fresh as its freshness period hasnot expired although the object is outdated on the server. When servinga cached object to a client request, the cache may not be aware that theobject has changed on the originating server. The cache may serve theobject multiple times while the freshness period has not expired. Withthe parallel revalidation technique described herein, the cacherevalidates the object with the originating server in parallel withserving the cached object in response the request. For example, if theobject in the cache is still considered fresh, the cache serves theobject to the client immediately, but, in parallel, the cache alsotransmits a conditional request to the server. If the object has changedafter all, the cache gets an updated copy in response to the conditionalrequest, and future object requests will get the updated object in thecache. Otherwise, you get a response that reports that it has not beenmodified.

FIG. 6A depicts an example embodiment of an appliance based system forserving and revalidating an object in a cache. Although this techniquewill be described generally in reference to a cache of the appliance200, this technique as described in conjunction with FIG. 6B can beperformed by any device having a cache, such as the client 102 oranother intermediary device, such as device 205.

Referring now to FIG. 6B, an embodiment of a method 600 of parallelrevalidation is depicted. In brief overview, at step 605, the appliance200 intercepts or otherwise receives a request for an object from aclient 102. At step 610, the appliance 200 identifies the object of therequest and determines the object is located in the cache 232. At step615, the appliance 200 transmits, in response to the determination, thecached object to the client. At step 620, also in response to thedetermination, the appliance transmits a request for a status the objectfrom an originating server. The appliance may serve the object at step615 and transmit a request at step 620 substantially simultaneously toeach other. At step 625, the appliance 200 receives a status of theobject or an updated copy of the object from the server. Based on theresponse from the server, the appliance 200 updates the cacheaccordingly. If the object has changed, the appliance 200 stores theupdated object to the cache 232.

In further detail, at step 605, the appliance 200 intercepts orotherwise receives any type and form of request for an object from aclient 102. In one embodiment, the appliance 200 intercepts a requestfor an object via an application layer protocol. For example, in someembodiments, the appliance 200 intercepts an object request via the HTTPprotocol. In one embodiment, the protocol accelerator 234 of the networkoptimization engine 250 is HTTP aware and identifies an object requestover HTTP from the client 102. In yet another embodiment, the clientrequests via a transport layer connection an object from the appliance200 or cache 232.

At step 610, the appliance 200 the appliance 200 determines the objectidentified by the request is stored in a cache. In one embodiment, theappliance 200 identifies, parses, extracts or otherwise determines aname or identifier of the object of the request, such as the uniformresource locator of the request. In some embodiments, the appliance 200uses an index comprising a hash of the name or identifier of the objectto determine if the object exists in the cache. In one embodiment, thecache index may be maintained in memory while the cached object isstored on a disk of the appliance 200. In other embodiments, the cachemanager 232 determines if the object exists in the cache by a query orany other means the cache manager uses for tracking the location orexistence of object in a cache. In some embodiments, the cache 232resides on the appliance 200. In other embodiments, the cache 232 islocated on another device 100, such as an appliance 200′, 205 or server106. In further embodiments, the appliance 200 may transmit a message orrequest to a cache manager on the appliance or another device 100 todetermine if the object exists or is located in the cache.

Based on determining that the object exists or is located in the cache,the appliance transmits the, the cached object to the client 102 inresponse to the client's request at step 615 and at step 620, alsotransmits a request for a status the object from an originating server.In one embodiment, the appliance serves the object at step 615 andtransmits a request for a status of the object at step 620 substantiallysimultaneously or concurrently to each other. In another embodiment, theappliance serves the object at step 615 and transmits a request for astatus of the object at step 620 in parallel to each other. In otherembodiments, the appliance transmits the request for a status of theobject at 620 prior to serving the cached object to the client at step615. In one embodiment, the appliance serves the cached object to theclient at step 615 before transmitting the request for the status of theobject at step 620.

In some embodiments, the appliance 200 executes code or executableinstructions for transmitting the request to the server for a status ofthe object is executed immediately before or after the executableinstructions to serve the object from the cache to the client 102. Inother embodiments, the executable instructions for serving the cachedobject to the client 102 execute in a separate process, service, driver,task or thread and at the same time as or concurrently with theexecutable instructions in a process, service, driver task or thread forrequesting the status of the object from the server. In someembodiments, the transmission of the cached object to the client at step615 occurs within a predetermined time period of the transmission of therequest of the status of the object to the server at step 620, orvice-versa. The predetermined time period may be configurable and set bythe appliance. In some embodiments, the predetermined time period may beset in the order of milliseconds or based on a packet processing timerof the packet processing engine. For example, the predetermined timeperiod may be 1 ms, 2 ms, 3 ms, 4 ms, 5 ms, 10 ms, 25 ms, 50 ms or 100ms. In other examples, the predetermined time period may be any valuebetween 1 ms and 1 second.

In some embodiments, the appliance 200 at step 620 transmits a status ofthe object. In one embodiment, the appliance 200 transmits the requestvia an application layer protocol, such as HTTP. In other embodiments,the appliance 200 transmits a conditional get of the object. Forexample, the appliance 200 transmits a conditional HTTP get request. Inyet another embodiment, the appliance 200 transmits a request to obtainthe current version of the object from the server 106. In oneembodiment, the appliance 200 forwards to the server the request of theclient intercepted by the appliance.

At step 625, the appliance 200 receives a status of the object or anupdated copy of the object from the server. In one embodiment, theappliance 200 receives a status that the object has not changed. Inanother embodiment, the appliance 200 receives a status that the objecthas changed. In some embodiments, the status indicates an identifier ofa version of the object. In other embodiments, the appliance 200receives an updated copy of the object. In yet another embodiment, theappliance 200 receives those portions of the object has changed insteadof an entire updated copy of the object. Based on the response from theserver, the appliance 200 updates the cache accordingly. If the objecthas changed, the appliance 200 stores the updated object or the changesto the object to the cache 232. In some embodiments, the appliance 200updates the version information of the object in the cache 232. Inanother embodiment, the appliance 200 updates the expiration period forthe cached object. In other embodiments, the appliance 200, for example,via the cache manager 232, updates the status of the object in the cacheto indicate the object is fresh or up-to-date.

In one embodiment, while revalidating the cached object in parallel toserving the cached object to a first requests for the object, theappliance 200 receives a second request for the object from the sameclient 102 or a different client 102′. In some embodiments, theappliance 200 performs a second revalidation of step 620 in response tothe second request. In other embodiments, the appliance 200 is aware therevalidation of the first request of the object has recently occurred oris occurring and does not transmit a request for a status of the objectto the server in response to the second request. In another embodiment,the appliance 200 in response to the second request determines theremaining period of the expiration of the cached object in within apredetermined threshold and in response to the determination, theappliance 200 does not transmit a request for a status of the object. Insome embodiments, the appliance 200 in response to the second requestdetermines the remaining period of the expiration of the cached objectexceeds a predetermined threshold and in response to the determination,the appliance 200 transmits a request for a status of the object. Instill another embodiment, the appliance 200 serves the object receivedfrom the server at step 625 in response to the first request and servesthe received object to the client in response to the second request.

As mentioned above, the techniques of method 600 may be performed on anydevice although generally described in connection with the appliance200. In one embodiment, a client agent 120 having the networkoptimization engine 250 discussed herein in conjunction with FIG. 3 mayperform the techniques of method 600. In other embodiments, thetechniques of method 600 may be performed on any device in the networkpath between a client and a server, including either the client orserver or a second appliance 200′ or 205′. In some embodiments, thecache management functionality may reside on a first device, such as theclient 102 or appliance 200 while the cache storing the object resideson a second device, such as a server 106, or second appliance 200′ or205.

Furthermore, the appliance 200 may determine which objects to performparallel revalidation based on one or more policies of a policy engine295. A policy may identify objects to serve and revalidate based on oneor more of the following: 1) the size of the object, 2) the type oridentifier of object, 3) the client requesting the object or anyattributes or characteristics of the client 4) the server originatingthe object or any attributes or characteristics of the server 5) theuser or group of the user, 6) the remaining time period of the cachedobject, and 7) frequency of object updates.

G. Systems and Methods of Providing Speculative QoS toPrefeshening/Prefetching Objects

Referring now to FIGS. 7A and 7B, systems and methods for techniques ofproviding Quality of Service (QoS) to speculative prefetching of objectsare depicted. As the appliance 200 described herein has the ability todetermine the link speed of a network connection as well as allocatingbandwidth and controlling flow of network traffic in real time providesan advantage in performing QoS for prefetching. Since speculativerequests compete with real requests or other requests from clients toservers, the techniques described herein provides a mechanism forprefetching objects to better utilize idle bandwidth and reduce networkcontention with non-prefetching requests. The technique tags, encodes orotherwise identifies prefetching requests as speculative so that anappliance transmits the request as a lower priority than other requestand when idle bandwidth is available.

Referring now to FIG. 7A, an appliance 200 having a network optimizationengine 250 is depicted. In brief overview, the appliance 200 interceptsor otherwise receives communications, such as pages served from anoriginating server 106 or transmitted via another appliance 200′ andforwards the page to the requesting client. The intercepted page mayidentify one or more objects, for example via uniform resource locatorsor hyperlinks. The appliance via the prefetcher 704 generates aspeculative request 750 to obtain the object from a remote server 106.The request may be considered a prefetch in that the user receiving thepage may have not yet requested the object identified by the page butthe appliance 200 requests the object in anticipation of intercepting arequest for the object from the user. The request is identified asspeculative to indicate to a transmitter or the appliance that therequest has a lower priority for transmission than non-speculativerequests. The appliance 200 includes a bandwidth detector 704 thatdetects idleness or availability of bandwidth of one or more networkconnections of the appliance 200. In response to the bandwidth detector702 detecting bandwidth availability, the prefetcher 704 transmits thespeculative request to prefetch the object to the originating server106. In some embodiments, the appliance 200 depicted in FIG. 7A is usedfor accelerating application protocol layer traffic such as HTTPtraffic.

The network optimization engine 250, or any portion thereof, such as theprotocol accelerator 234, may include the bandwidth detector 702. Thebandwidth detector 702 may include software, hardware or any combinationof software and hardware. The bandwidth detector 702 may comprise anapplication, program, script, library, process, service, driver, task,thread or any type and form of executable instructions. The bandwidthdetector 702 includes or provides logic, business rules, functions oroperations for determining an availability, idleness or utilization ofnetwork bandwidth for one or more network links or connections. In oneembodiment, the bandwidth detector 702 measures round-trip or responsetimes to a server 106. In other embodiments, the bandwidth detector 702determines the number of packets on a queue waiting to be transmitted.In some embodiments, the bandwidth detector 702 detects the transitionof a queue of network packets from empty to non-empty and vice-versa.

In yet other embodiments, the bandwidth detector 702 measures theutilization of a port or network connection of the appliance. In anotherembodiment, the bandwidth detector 702 determines the number of activeconnections, active users, or concurrent connections. In someembodiments, the bandwidth detector 702 detects the number ofoutstanding requests waiting responses. Based on the number of packetsin a queue, the emptiness or state transitions of queue, response timesof servers, round-trip times to and from a server, number of concurrentconnections, number of concurrent users, the operational status of aCPU, port and memory usage of the appliance 200, the bandwidth detector702 may determine that bandwidth is available for a lower priorityrequest, such as the speculative prefetch request 750.

The network optimization engine 250, or any portion thereof, such as theprotocol accelerator 234, may include the prefetcher 704. The prefetcher704 may include software, hardware or any combination of software andhardware. The prefetcher 704 may comprise an application, program,script, library, process, service, driver, task, thread or any type andform of executable instructions. The prefetcher 704 includes or provideslogic, business rules, functions or operations for generating requestsor one or more packets for a request. In one embodiment, the prefetchergenerates one or more packets identified as speculative, for either arequest or a response. In some embodiments, the prefetcher 704 generatesa request to prefetch identified objects, such as objects identified byintercepted pages and initiates the transmission of the generatedrequest to a server 106. In one embodiment, the prefetcher 704 generatesrequests for prefreshening objects identified in the cache 232. In someembodiments, the prefetcher 704 generates a request 750 identified asspeculative or with a QoS priority lower than non-prefetch requests. Inother embodiments, the prefetcher 704 receives the response to theprefetch request and stores the object of the response to the cache 232.In some embodiments, the prefetcher 704 receives the response to arequest and generates a response 752 identified as speculative. Inanother embodiment, the prefetcher 704 modifies one or more responsepackets to mark or identify the response 752 as speculative.

The prefetcher 704 generates a speculative request, such as the request750, using any type and form of encoding scheme to mark or identify therequest as speculative or to otherwise identify the one or more requestpackets as having a low priority. In one embodiment, the prefetcher 704encodes a value of an option field of a transport protocol layer header,such as a Transport Control Protocol (TCP) header with a predeterminedvalue. The predetermined value identifies to a transmitter of the packetthat the packet is speculative. In some embodiments, the prefetcher 704may tag any of the transport layer packets as discussed above inconnection with the automatic WAN/LAN port detection techniques. Assuch, in these embodiments, a connection may be marked for handlingspeculative requests and/or responses or a packet may be tagged as aspeculative request or response. In another embodiment, the prefetcher704 encodes a value of an option field of an internet protocol ornetwork layer header, such as the IP header, with a predetermined value.In some embodiments, the prefetcher 704 encodes a value in the TCP or IPoptions, or in the identification field of IP header or of a networkpacket. In still further embodiments, the prefetcher 704 may generate aresponse or request packet with any Type of Service (TOS) field orDifferentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) field set to a predeterminedvalue. In some embodiments, the predetermined value encoded by theprefetcher 704 identifies a low priority transmission request. Inanother embodiment, the prefetcher 704 encodes a value in any optionalapplication protocol layer header, field or parameter to identifying thespeculative priority of the request or response.

In some embodiments, the network optimization engine 250 via theprefetcher 704, flow controller 238 and/or QoS Engine 236 transmitsrequests and/or responses identified as speculative according to atransmission schedule or priority. In the these embodiments, the networkoptimization engine 250 transmits the speculative requests or responsesat a pace or transmission rate that maintains bandwidth usage within apredetermined threshold or level. The network optimization engine 240may transmits speculative requests or responses at a transmission rateor schedule that utilizes unused bandwidth or available bandwidth. Inthis manner, the speculative network packets may be transmitted suchthat the transmission does not reduce the bandwidth available tonon-speculative requests and response. In some embodiments, the networkoptimization engine 250 transmits speculative requests or response suchthat the transmission does not reduce, or otherwise minimizes thereduction of, a round trip time of a non-speculative request andresponse. In other embodiments, the network optimization engine 250transmits speculative requests or responses upon detecting that thereare not any non-speculative requests or responses to transmit. Inanother embodiment, the network optimization engine 250 transmitsspeculative requests or responses upon detecting that there the numberof non-speculative requests or responses to transmit is within apredetermined threshold. In yet another embodiment, the networkoptimization engine 250 transmits speculative requests or responsesduring any idle time between transmitting non-speculative requests andresponse.

In other embodiments, the bandwidth detector 702 and/or prefetcher 704maintains, updates or accesses a connection or state table 703. Theconnection or state table 703 may include any type of data structure,object, file or database for storing, tracking and obtaining informationrelated to a state of a connection. In one embodiment, the bandwidthdetector 702 and/or prefetcher 704 uses the connection state table 703for maintaining any one or more of the following: a status of theavailability of idleness, bandwidth utilization of a connection, numberof non-speculative requests and/or responses waiting to be responded toor transmitted, number of speculative requests or responses waiting tobe transmitted or responded to, priorities of any network packets to betransmitted by the appliance, type and speed of a port or networkconnections, identification of any cooperating or partner appliances,device or clients, and any other operational conditions of the appliance200 or device 100 or connections of the appliance 200 or the device 100.

Referring now to FIG. 7B, an embodiment of steps of a method 700 forprefetching requests using a speculative QoS scheme is depicted. Inbrief overview, at step 705, the appliance 200 intercepts or otherwisereceives a page transmitted by a server 106 to a client 102. The pageincludes an identifier of one or more objects. The appliance 200forwards the intercepted page to the client 102. At step 710, theappliance identifies the object and generates a request packet to aremote server for the object. The appliance 200 encodes the generatedrequest as a speculative request. At step 715, the appliance determinesavailability of idle network bandwidth to transmit the generated requestpacket to the server 106. At step 720, the appliance 200 in response tothe detection of available idle bandwidth transmits to the generatedrequest packet to the server 106. At step 725, the appliance receivesthe prefetched object from the server 106 and stores the object to thecache 232.

In further details, at step 705, the appliance 200 intercepts orotherwise receives any type and form of communication from one device toanother device identifying an object, such as from a server to a client.In one embodiment, the appliance 200 intercepts a response from a serverto a client's request for an object. In some embodiments, the server 106transmits one or more network packets having an application protocollayer payload identifying an object. For example, in one embodiment, theappliance 200 intercepts a web or HTTP page transmitted by a server 106to a client 102 and the page includes a uniform resource locator (URL)or hyperlink identifying an object. In one embodiment, the protocolaccelerator 234 of the network optimization engine 250 is HTTP aware andidentifies an object identifier in HTTP content transmitted by a server105. In yet another embodiment, the appliance 200 intercepts HTTP headerinformation in response to client requests via a transport layerconnection that identify an object. In some further embodiments, theappliance 200 intercepts responses from the server for a status of anobject that identify the object. In yet other embodiments, the appliance200 intercepts communications between a client and server interceptedand forwarded by another appliance.

At step 710, the appliance 200 or prefetcher 704 generates in responseto identifying the object a request to obtain the object from an objectserver 106, such as the originating server of the page. In someembodiments, the prefetcher 704 checks or attempts to locate theidentified object in the cache 232. In one embodiment, the prefetcher704 does not locate the object in the cache 232 or otherwise determinesthe object does not exist in the cache 232. In these embodiments, theprefetcher 704 generates a request for the object referred to as aprefetch since the appliance or client has not obtained the objectpreviously. In another aspect, the request is referred to as a prefetchin that the user of the client receiving the page has not yet requestedthe object from the page.

In other embodiments, the prefetcher 704 locates the object in the cache232. In these embodiments, the prefetcher 704 generates a request forthe object referred to as a prefeshening request since the object islocated in the cache but the appliance is requesting a status or updateto the object from the server before expiration of the cached object. Asdiscussed above, the prefetcher 704 may identify or encode the generatedrequest as speculative by a variety of means, including but not limitedto encoding a predetermined priority value in an IP header field, IPheader option, transport layer header option field or a field of theapplication layer protocol. In one embodiment, the prefetcher 702 mayidentity or set a priority of the speculative request in the connectionstate table 703.

At step 715, the bandwidth detector 702 of the appliance 200 detects,determines or otherwise identifies availability of bandwidth fortransmitting a speculative request. In one embodiment, the bandwidthdetector 702 detects the transition of a packet queue from non-empty topempty. In some embodiments, the bandwidth detector 702 determines thathigher priority packet queues are below a predetermined threshold. Inone embodiment, the bandwidth detector 702 detects that there are nonon-speculative request packets to transmit at the point ofdetermination. In yet other embodiments, the bandwidth detector 702determines that a level of network traffic to the destination of therequest packet is below a predetermined threshold. In one embodiment,the bandwidth detector 702 determines there are no responses outstandingto the appliance 200 or client 102 from the server 106.

In yet other embodiments, the bandwidth detector 702 determines that theresponse times from the server are below a predetermined threshold. Insome embodiments, the bandwidth detector 702 determines that the numberof packets in queue to be transmitted to the server is below apredetermined threshold. In yet other embodiments, the bandwidthdetector 702 measures bandwidth utilization and determines that thebandwidth utilization is within a predetermined threshold. In stillother embodiments, the bandwidth detector 702 determines that networkconditions are suitable for transmitting a speculative request or thatotherwise sending the speculative request will have negligible impact onnon-speculative requests. In one embodiment, the bandwidth detector 702checks a status of bandwidth utilization, the connection and/or packetsto be transmitted via the connection to determine if the networkcondition is in a state for transmitting a speculative request

At step 720, the appliance 200 in response to the detection of availableidle bandwidth transmits the generated request to the server 106. In oneembodiment, the appliance 200 transmits the generated request to theserver 106. In some embodiments, the appliance 200 obtains the generatedrequest from a queue of speculative requests waiting to be transmitted.For example, the queue may be a FIFO (First In First Out) or LIFO (LastIn First Out) queue. In some embodiments, the appliance 200 transmits aplurality of generated requests to the server 106. For example, theprefetcher 704 may generate multiple requests for objects identified viaone or more intercepted pages as originating from the server 106. In yetother embodiments, the appliance 200 transmits a first speculativerequest 750 to a first server 106A, and a second speculative request750′ to a second server 106B. In one embodiment, the appliance 200transmits the speculative requests by the order in which they weregenerated.

Further to step 720, the appliance 200 or network optimization engine250 transmits speculative request at a transmission rate or schedule tomaintain bandwidth utilization within a predetermined threshold orlevel. In one embodiment, the network optimization engine 250 transmitsthe speculative request upon detecting by the bandwidth detector 702that the bandwidth utilization is within a predetermined level. Inanother embodiment, the network optimization engine 250 transmits thespeculative request upon determining that the number of non-speculativerequests to transmit, or in a transmission queue, is below apredetermined threshold. In some embodiment, the network optimizationengine 250 transmits the speculative request during any idle timeavailable between transmissions of non-speculative requests. In otherembodiments, the network optimization engine 250 transmits thespeculative request such that bandwidth utilization by the speculativerequest is maintained within a predetermined level. In some embodiments,the network optimization engine 250 transmits the speculative requestsuch that round trip times for non-speculative requests or responses aremaintained at a predetermined level.

At step 725, the appliance 200 receives the object requested via thespeculative request from the server 106. In one embodiment, thespeculative request is a prefetch and the appliance 200 or prefetcher702 stores the object in the cache 232. In another embodiment, thespeculative request is a prefreshening request and the appliance 200 orprefetcher 702 updates the object stored in the cache 23 with a newversion of the object.

The technique described above may be deployed on any device—client,appliance, or server. In some embodiments, the prefetching devicedescribed above may deployed on a client side of a network connection,such as on the client side of a WAN link. In other embodiments, theprefetching device described above may be deployed on a server side of anetwork connection, such as the server side of a WAN. In someembodiments, the appliance 200 may have a connection to an unpaced fastside or LAN connection and a connection to a paced slow side or WANconnection. In one embodiment, the device on the client side paces theincoming WAN data but not the outgoing LAN data. In another embodiment,the device on the server side paces the outgoing WAN data but not theincoming LAN data.

In some embodiments, the technique of generating speculative requests toa server is carried through to the responses 752 from the server. Thatis, in one embodiment, by identifying the request as speculative, theresponse 752 to the request is identified and handled at a QoS priorityassociated with the speculative designation. In one embodiment,identifying server's responses as speculative is handled by cooperatingor partner appliances or devices. For example, as illustrated in FIGS.1A-1C, a first appliance 200 may operate in conjunction with a secondappliance 200′. In one embodiment, the first appliance 200 may bedeployed on a WAN or client side of a network connection while thesecond appliance 200′ is deployed on the LAN side or server side of theconnection. Also, as discussed herein, a first appliance 200 may operatein conjunction with a network optimization engine 250 deployed on aclient 102 and/or server 106.

By way of example and referring now to FIG. 7C, a dual appliancedeployment or a deployment of a first network optimization engine 250 ona client 102 or first appliance 200′ and a second network optimizationengine 250′ on a second appliance 200′ or a server 106 is depicted. Forexample, the first device (client 102 or appliance 200) may be on theclient side of a WAN in which the first device controls the transmissionflow or paces incoming data from the WAN, such as WAN data received fromthe second device. The first device may transmit LAN data in an unpacedmanner to the second device. The second device (appliance 200 or 200′)may be on the server side of the WAN in which the second device controlsthe transmission flow or paces outgoing WAN data to the first device.The second device may transmit LAN data in an unpaced manner to theserver.

In brief overview, a first device, such as an appliance 200 or client102, intercepts or otherwise receives a page served by a server andidentifies an object identifier in the page. The first device mayforward the page to a client or an application on a client requestingthe page. The first device generates a speculative request to prefetchfrom a server the object corresponding to the object identifier. Thefirst device may transmit the speculative request packet to the serverin accordance to a transmission rate to maintain bandwidth usage withina predetermined level. A second device, such as an appliance 200′ or aserver 106, intercepts the speculative request of the first device. Thesecond device identifies the request as speculative and forwards therequest to an originating server 106. Upon receiving the response fromthe server, the second device identifies the response as speculative orgenerates a speculative response. Upon detecting available of idlenetwork bandwidth, the second device may transmit the response to theclient 102 or appliance 200 in accordance to a transmission rate tomaintain bandwidth usage within a predetermined level. The first andsecond devices can transmit the speculative requests and responsesresponsive to availability of idle network bandwidth detected by thebandwidth detector on either the receive or send side of a responseand/or request, or both.

Referring now to FIG. 7D, an embodiment of steps of a method 750 for atechnique of handling speculative responses between devices is depicted.In brief overview, at step 755, a first device intercepts or otherwisereceives a page identifying an object transmitted from a server to arequester, such as a client. The first device forwards the page to therequester. At step 760, the first device transmits a generatedspeculative request to the server to prefetch the object identified bythe page. The first device may transmit the request at a transmissionrate to maintain bandwidth usage within a predetermined level or tootherwise use idle or available bandwidth. At step 765, a second deviceintercepts the speculative request of the first device, and forwards therequest to the server 106. At step 770, the second device receives aresponse from the server to the request. At step 775, the bandwidthdetector 702 of the second device determines the availability of idlenetwork bandwidth to transmit a speculative response to the first deviceor otherwise to the requester. At step 780, the second device generatesa speculative response or marks the received response as speculative,and transmits the speculative response in response to the determinationof the bandwidth detector 702. The second device may transmit theresponse at a transmission rate to maintain bandwidth usage within apredetermined level or to otherwise use idle or available bandwidth.

In further details, at step 755, a first device intercepts or otherwisereceives a page identifying an object transmitted by an originatingserver. In one embodiment, the first device is a client 102. In someembodiments, the first device is a first appliance 200. In anotherembodiment, the first device is deployed on the WAN side of a networkconnection. In one embodiment, the first device is deployed in a branchoffice. As discussed above in connection with step 705 of method 700,the first device may intercept any type and form of communication fromone device to another device identifying an object. In yet anotherembodiment, both the first device and second device intercept the pageidentifying the object. In one embodiment, the second device interceptsand identifies the object for prefetching, such as in accordance withthe embodiment of method 700.

At step 760, the first device may generate a speculative request 750.The first device may generate the speculative request using any of theencoding techniques discussed herein. In one embodiment, the firstdevice transmits the speculative request 750 immediately or as soon aspossible. In another embodiment, the first device transmits thespeculative request 750 at the same priority as non-speculative requestfrom the first device. In some embodiments, the first device transmitsthe speculative request 750 responsive to the bandwidth detector 702 ofthe first device determining available network bandwidth as describedabove.

In one embodiment, the network optimization engine 250 transmits thespeculative request upon detecting by the bandwidth detector 702 thatthe bandwidth utilization is within a predetermined level. In anotherembodiment, the network optimization engine 250 transmits thespeculative request upon determining that the number of non-speculativerequests to transmit, or in a transmission queue, is below apredetermined threshold. In some embodiment, the network optimizationengine 250 transmits the speculative request during any idle timeavailable between transmissions of non-speculative requests. In otherembodiments, the network optimization engine 250 transmits thespeculative request such that bandwidth utilization by the speculativerequest is maintained within a predetermined level. In some embodiments,the network optimization engine 250 transmits the speculative requestsuch that round trip times for non-speculative requests or responses ismaintained at a predetermined level. The first device may transmit theresponse at a transmission rate to maintain bandwidth usage within apredetermined level or to otherwise use idle or available bandwidth.

At step 765, the second device intercepts or otherwise receives thespeculative request 750 transmitted by the first device. In oneembodiment, the second device is a second appliance 200′. In otherembodiments, the second device is the server 106. In yet anotherembodiment, the second device is deployed on a LAN side of a networkconnection, such as at a corporate data center. In some embodiments, thefirst device transmits the speculative request 750 to the second deviceinstead of the second device intercepting the transmission of thespeculative request 750 to the server 106. In one embodiment, the seconddevice identifies the intercepted request as speculative by detectingthe speculative encoding scheme of the packet. The second device mayidentify from the encoding scheme of the packet that the request shouldbe treated with a QoS priority associated with speculative prefetching.

In some embodiments, the second device forwards the speculative request750 to the server 106. In other embodiments, the second device generatesa non-speculative request for the object and transmits the request tothe server. In another embodiment, the second device transmits thespeculative request 750 or second request immediately or as soon aspossible. In other embodiments, the second device transmits thespeculative request 750 or second request as the same priority asnon-speculative requests In one embodiment, the second device transmitsthe speculative request 750 or second request responsive to thebandwidth detector 702, such as the bandwidth detector 702 detectingavailability of bandwidth to transmit a request to the server 106. Inone embodiment, the network optimization engine 250 transmits thespeculative request upon detecting by the bandwidth detector 702 thatthe bandwidth utilization is within a predetermined level. The seconddevice may transmit the response at a transmission rate to maintainbandwidth usage within a predetermined level or to otherwise use idle oravailable bandwidth.

At step 770, the second device receives a response to the request forthe object from the server 106. In one embodiment, the server 106identifies the request as speculative and transmits the response upondetection of available bandwidth or upon QoS transmission schedulingmechanism identifying the response as low priority or speculative. Insome embodiments, the second device receives the response and associatesthe response with an outstanding speculative request 750. For example,in one embodiment, the second device identifies the response as aresponse to a speculative request 750 via a connection state table 703.

In some embodiments, the second device generates or otherwise provides aspeculative response 752. In one embodiment, the second device generatesa response including content from the response received from the serverand encodes the generated response as speculative. In anotherembodiment, the second device alters, modifies or changes the responsepacket from the server to identify the response 752 as speculative. Inmany embodiments, the response from the server 106 includes multiplenetwork packets. In some of these embodiments, the second devicegenerates, provides or identifies the response packets as speculative.The second device may identify the response packet 752 as speculative inthe same manner or using the same encoding scheme as the request 750. Inanother embodiment, the second device may use a different speculativeQoS encoding scheme recognized by the second device and/or the firstdevice.

At step 775, in one embodiment, the bandwidth detector 702 of the seconddevice detects availability of idle network bandwidth to the client 102or first device in accordance with step 715 previously discussed above.At step 780, the second devices transmits the speculative response 752in response to the bandwidth detector or otherwise in accordance withQoS transmission scheduling of speculative packets by the second device.The second device may transmit the response at a transmission rate tomaintain bandwidth usage within a predetermined level or to otherwiseuse idle or available bandwidth. In some embodiments, the first deviceintercepts the speculative response 752 and stores the object to thecache 232 or updates the object in the cache 232.

In some embodiments, the first device and the second device, such as afirst appliance 200 and a second appliance 200′ may each transmit orforward the speculative request 752 to prefetch an object onto theoriginating server 106 in response to a bandwidth detector and at alower priority QoS to reduce contention with non-speculative requests onbandwidth. Likewise, the first device and second device may eachtransmit or forward the response as a speculative response 752 inresponse to a bandwidth detector and at a lower priority QoS to reducecontention with non-speculative requests on bandwidth. Furthermore, thefirst and second devices may transmit the speculative requests at a sameor similar priority as non-speculative requests and transmit thespeculative responses according to a QoS priority designed forspeculative transmission. In yet other embodiments, the first and seconddevice may transmit speculative requests and responses according to aspeculative QoS priority on ports associates with a WAN connection. Instill another embodiment, the first and second device may transmit thespeculative requests and responses at a transmission rate or pace tomaintain bandwidth usage within a predetermined level or to otherwiseuse idle or available bandwidth.

Using the system and methods describe above, these speculativeprefetching techniques reduce the time the user spends waiting.Speculative prefetching may reduce the average interactive transactiontime. That is, in some case, we are prefetching the object the user hasnot asked for so that the object may be available in case the user doesask for the object. Thus, this technique may reduce the time the userspends waiting. Using the speculative prefetching technique above,unused or idle bandwidth is used such the cost of speculativelyprefetching is minimal on bandwidth.

Although the systems and methods are generally described above inconnection with HTTP type of prefetching, these techniques may be usedand applied to any type and form of speculative fetching such asread-ahead, write-behind, and content distributions as well asprefreshening objects in a cache. For example, the speculativeprefetching technique may used to obtain content for compressionhistories shared between compression engines of a plurality of devices.In another example, the appliance or appliances may provide thespeculative pre-fetching techniques for read-aheads and write-behinds ofdocuments and files, such as office documents, via the CIFS protocol. Inone embodiment, a user in a branch office may be accessing a documentover a WAN connection via one or more appliances to a server in a datacenter. The appliance 200 may intercept a request for a page of adocument identifying objects or additional content of subsequent pages.The appliance 200 may prefetch the subsequent pages or objects inspeculation that the user may request the pages or objects. Theappliance may use the techniques in here to transmit these prefetchrequests and responses in a lower priority manner in order to reducenetwork bandwidth contention with non-speculative requests andresponses.

H. Systems and Methods for a Stack-Oriented Prefetching Technique

Referring now to FIGS. 8A and 8B, systems and methods of a technique forpushing and popping objects from a stack to determine the order of whichto prefetch objects are depicted. This technique, referred as“stack-oriented prefetching” makes a prefetching determinationresponsive to the pages a user is currently visiting or has recentlyvisited by using a stack. For example, a prefetching scheme may notdesire to prefetch links from a first requested page after the user haswandered off to a second page. When the user requests a page, thetechnique pushes the uniform resource locator (URL) or objectidentifiers of the page onto a prefetching stack. When a prefetcher isready to prefetch objects or content from a new page, the prefetcherpops a URL from the top of the stack, and fetches the objects or contentidentified via the popped URL. In this manner, the prefetcher givesprecedence to prefetching objects of recent pages requests over previouspage requests.

Referring now to FIG. 8A, an embodiment of a system for performing thestack-oriented prefetching technique is depicted. In brief overview, adevice such as appliance 200 includes a network optimization engine 250intercepting pages requested by a requestor, such as client, and servedby an originating server 106. The appliance 200 identifies a uniformresource locator (URL) for an intercepted page, which may identify oneor more objects associated with the page. The appliance 200 pushes theURL from the page on to the top of a stack element 850. As the appliance200 intercepts each page, the appliances pushes an URL of the page ontothe stack. At some point, a prefetcher 704 determines to performprefetching of objects. The prefetcher 704 pops from the top of thestack the last URL pushed onto the stack. This URL represents the lastpage requested by a requestor and intercepted by the appliance. Theprefetcher 704 determines one or more object identifiers from the URL,generates requests for the objects, and transmits the requests to aserver. The appliance 200 receives the prefetched objects and storesthem in the cache 232. The prefetched may continue popping URLs from thestack 850 to prefetch object while the appliances pushes new URLS ofintercepted pages onto the stack.

As discussed above in connection with 7A, the prefetcher 704 may includesoftware, hardware or any combination of software and hardware. Theprefetcher 704 may comprise an application, program, script, library,process, service, driver, task, thread or any type and form ofexecutable instructions. The prefetcher 704 includes or provides logic,business rules, functions or operations for generating packets, such aspackets to requests objects from a server 106. In some embodiments, theprefetcher 704 receives the response to the prefetch request and storesthe object of the response to the cache 232

The prefetcher 704 may also include logic, business rules, functions oroperations for determining when to prefetch an object or content from aserver. In one embodiment, the prefetcher 704 is designed andconstructed to prefetch objects responsive to a predetermined frequency.In other embodiments, the prefetcher 704 is designed and constructed toprefetch objects responsive to the packet processing engine 240. Inanother embodiment, the prefetcher 704 is designed and constructed toprefetch objects responsive to a predetermined number of packets, sentand/or received, being processed by the packet processing engine 240. Inother embodiments, the prefetcher 704 is designed and constructed toprefetch objects responsive to a timer. In one embodiment, theprefetcher 704 is designed and constructed to prefetch objectsresponsive to network bandwidth or utilization, such as via thebandwidth detector 702 discussed in conjunction with FIG. 7A. In yetanother embodiment, the prefetcher 704 may be responsive to current loadof the appliance 200, such as the number of concurrent connections, andCPU and memory usage.

In some embodiments, the prefetcher 704 is responsive to one or morepolicies of a policy engine 295 to determine when to prefetch objects.As such, the prefetcher 704, in some embodiments, may be configured andresponsive to policies based on the identification or type of user,client, server, or network connection. In some embodiments, theprefetcher 704 may be responsive to policies based on any temporalinformation, such as frequency or time of day. In other embodiments, theprefetcher 704 may be responsive to policies based on the type ofnetwork traffic, protocol or any portion or content of a network packet,such as source and destination addresses and ports, and TCP or IPoptions. In one embodiment, the prefetcher 704 may be responsive topolicies based on any attributes or characteristics of a client 102 orserver 106 such as via end point detection, for example, via acollection agent 304 as described in conjunction with FIG. 3.

The prefetcher 704 is interfaced to or in communication with a stack850. In one embodiment, the prefetcher 704 is integrated with the stack850. In another embodiment, the prefetcher 704 includes the stack 850 orotherwise implements the stack 850. In some embodiments, the prefetcher704 is designed and constructed to prefetch objects responsive to a sizeof the stack 850. In other embodiments, the prefetcher 704 is designedand constructed to prefetch objects responsive to a frequency of accessof data to and from the stack 850. In yet another embodiment, theprefetcher 704 is designed and constructed to prefetch objectsresponsive to a history of the number of elements in the stack 850. Insome embodiments, prefetcher 704 is designed and constructed to prefetchobjects responsive to number of elements not fetched in the stack 850.In one embodiment, the prefetcher 704 is designed and constructed toprefetch objects that have been stored in the stack for a predeterminedtime period. In other embodiments, prefetcher 704 is designed andconstructed to prefetch objects responsive to a predetermined number ofelements pushed onto to the stack 850. In yet one embodiment, theprefetcher 704 is designed and constructed to prefetch objectsresponsive to a predetermined number of elements pushed on the stack 850within a predetermined time period.

The stack 850 may include software, hardware or any combination ofsoftware and hardware. The stack 850 may comprise an application,program, script, library, process, service, driver, task, thread or anytype and form of executable instructions. In some embodiments, the stack850 may be implemented as one or more data structures, linked list,queues, variables, arrays or objects stored in memory. In otherembodiments, the stack 850 may be implemented as a file or a database.In some embodiments, the executable instructions for the stack 85includes or provides logic, business rules, functions or operations forstoring elements to the stack 850 and access and/or remove elements fromthe stack 850. In one embodiment, the stack 850 is implemented as a LastIn First Out (LIFO) stack or queue—that is, the last element stored tothe stack is the first element retrieved or accessed from the stack. Inthese embodiments, the storing of an element to the top of a LIFO stackis referred to as pushing the element onto the stack. Also, in theseembodiments, the retrieving or access an element from the top of theLIFO stack is referred to as popping the element from the stack. In yetanother embodiment, the stack 850 includes an enumerated list ofelements representing a LIFO scheme.

In some embodiments, the stack 850 includes a predetermined maximumnumber of elements allowed to be stored in the stack 850. In otherembodiments, the stack 850 includes a maximum size in bytes allowed tobe stored to the stack 850. In one embodiment, the stack 850 includes apredetermined size threshold for each element or data that is stored tothe stack 850.

In yet other embodiments, the stack 850 may include a plurality ofstacks 850A-850A. In some embodiments, the appliance 200 may dynamicallycreate or establish stacks 850A-850N. In other embodiments, theappliance dynamically removes or destroys stacks. In yet anotherembodiment, the appliance 200 may copy and share stacks 850A-850Nbetween users or clients. In some embodiments, the plurality of thestacks 850A-850N may be used for all connections traversing theappliance 200. In one embodiment, the appliance 200 may create, useand/or assign a stack 850A to each client 102A. In another embodiment,the appliance 200 may create, use and/or assign a stack 850A for eachtransport layer connection or application layer session. In anotherembodiment, the appliance 200 may create, use and/or assign a stack 850Afor each server 106. In another embodiment, the appliance 200 maycreate, use and/or assign a stack 850A to a group of connections, users,clients or servers, such as for a group of users or clients of a branchoffice.

In one embodiment, the stack 850 provides functions, messages, orapplication programming interfaces (API) to store, access, manage,modify or manipulate the stack 850. In one embodiment, the prefetcher704 may interface or communicate with the stack 850 using any type andform of application programming interface (API). In another embodiment,the prefetcher 704 may interface or communicate with the stack using anytype and form of messaging. In some embodiments, the prefetcher 704 mayinterface or communicate with the stack 850 using any type and form ofinterprocess communications. In yet another embodiment, the prefetcher704 includes and executes the operations, functionality or logic of thestack 850.

Referring now to FIG. 8B, an embodiment of steps of a method 800 forperforming a stack-oriented prefetching technique is depicted. In briefoverview, at step 805, an appliance intercepts or otherwise receives apage including one or more object identifiers. At step 810, theappliance 200 pushes onto a top of the stack 850 an object identifier orURL from the intercepted page. At step 815, the prefetcher of theappliance 200 determines to prefetch objects, and in response to thedetermination, pops one or more URLs or object identifiers from the topof the stack 850. At step 850, the appliance or prefetcher generates arequest for an object identified by the popped URL and transmits therequest to a server 106. At step 825, upon receipt of a response fromthe server, the appliance 200 or prefetcher 200 stores or updates theobject in a cache 232.

In further details, at step 805, the appliance 200 intercepts orotherwise receives any type and form of communication from one device toanother device identifying an object, such as a page transmitted from aserver to a client. In one embodiment, the appliance 200 intercepts aresponse from a server to a client's request for an object. In someembodiments, the server 106 transmits one or more network packets havingan application protocol layer payload identifying an object. Forexample, in one embodiment, the appliance 200 intercepts a web or HTTPpage transmitted by a server 106 to a client 102 and the page includes auniform resource locator (URL) or hyperlink identifying an object. Insome embodiments, the appliance 200 intercepts a page identified by aURL and the page identifies one or more objects. After interception, theappliance 200 forwards or transmits the intercepted page to therequester, such as client 102.

At step 810, the appliance 200 stores to the stack 810 an identifier ofan object from the intercepted page. In some embodiments, the appliance200 pushes a URL identifying an object on the page onto the top of thestack 850. In other embodiments, the appliance 200 stores a copy of thepage onto the stack. In yet another embodiment, the appliance 200 storesthe one or more object identifiers of the page to the top of the stack850. In some embodiments, the appliance 200 stores one or morehyperlinks from the page to the top of the stack 850. In one embodiment,the appliance stores an identifier or URL of an object of the page to afirst stack 850A. In some embodiments, the appliances stores anidentifier or URL of an object the page to a stack associated with orassigned to the client 102, server 106, user or connection.

In many embodiments, the appliance 200 performs steps 805 and 810 for aplurality of pages transmitted via the appliance 200. In someembodiments, the appliance 200 stores multiple object identifiers orURLs to the top of the stack 850. In one embodiment, the appliance 200stores a first object identifier or first URL to a first stack 850A anda second object identifier or second URL to a second stack 850B. Inother embodiments, based on the client, server, user or other factors,such as a policy engine or condition of the stack, the appliance 200 maystore, access and manage object identifiers or URL among a plurality ofstacks 850A-850N. For example, the appliance 200 may store URLs fromintercepted pages of client 102A to stack 850A and store URLs fromintercepted pages of client 102B to stack 850B. In another example, theappliance 200 may store URLs from intercepted pages from server 106A tostack 850A and store URLS from intercepted pages from server 106B tostack 850B.

At step 815, the prefetcher 704 of the appliance 200 determines toprefetch objects. As discussed above, the prefetcher 704 may determineto perform prefetching based on or responsive to any one or morefactors, conditions, status, a policy engine 295, or other programs. Inresponse to the determination, the prefetcher 704 retrieves, pops orotherwise accesses the object identifier or URLs from the top of thestack 850. In one embodiment, the prefetcher 704 pops object identifieror URLs from the stack in a LIFO manner. In some embodiments, theprefetcher 704 pops one object identifier or URLs at a time from thestack 850. In another embodiment, the prefetcher 704 pops multiple URLsor object identifiers from the stack 850. In other embodiments, theprefetcher 704 pops a predetermined number of URLs or object identifiersfrom the stack 850. The predetermined number may be configurable or maybe dynamically adjustable by the prefetcher 704.

In yet another embodiment, the prefetcher 704 pops a first objectidentifier or URL from a first stack 850A. In some embodiments, theprefetcher 704 pops a second object identifier or URL from a secondstack 850B. In one embodiment, the prefetcher 704 pops a firstpredetermined number of object identifiers from a first stack 850A andthen a second predetermined number of object identifiers from a secondstack 850B. In some cases, the prefetcher 705 may use any round robin,weighted loading mechanism or fair distribution scheme to pop objectidentifiers or URLs from multiple stacks 850A-850N.

At step 820, the prefetcher 704 generates a request packet for theobject identified by the object identifier or URL. In some embodiments,the prefetcher 704 generates a request packet to obtain the URL from aserver 106. In other embodiments, the prefetcher 704 generates a requestfor multiple object identifiers or URLS popped from the stack 850. Inyet another embodiment, the prefetcher 704 generates a request for eachof a plurality of object identifiers or URLS popped from the stack 850.In yet a further embodiment, the prefetcher generates a request packetto obtain a status of the object. In one embodiment, the prefetchergenerates a request packet for a conditional get of the object. Theappliance 200 or prefetcher 704 transmits the one or more requestpackets to the server 106. In some embodiments, the appliance 200 orprefetcher 704 may use any QoS algorithm or technique to transmit therequests, such as, for example, the speculative QoS techniques of FIGS.7A-7D.

In many embodiments, the appliance 200 performs steps 815 and 820 for amultiple object identifiers of one or more stacks 850A-850N. In someembodiments, the appliance 200 performs steps 815 and 820 apredetermined number of times before allowing another object identifieror URL to be pushed onto the stack. In other embodiments, the appliance200 gives priority or precedence to a pending push onto the stack 850.In one embodiment, the appliance 200 transmits a generated request forthe URL of the pending push and then continues popping URLs andtransmitting requests in accordance with steps 815 and 820. In otherembodiments, the appliance 250 continues performing steps 815 and 820 ona first stack 850A while the appliance pushes URLs or object identifiersto a second stack 850B. In yet another embodiment, during idle times,the prefetcher 704 performs steps 815 and 820 until a page isintercepted or the appliance is no longer idle.

At step 825, the appliance 200 or prefetcher 704 receives a response toa request from a server 106. In some embodiments, the appliance 200receives multiple responses from multiples requests from one or moreservers. In one embodiment, the appliance 200 identifies the object froma response and associates the object with an object identifier of aprefetch request. In another embodiment, the appliance 200 intercepts aresponse to a client's request having the object associated with theappliance's request. In these embodiments, the appliance 200 may usethis object to satisfy the generated request of the appliance. Theappliance 200 stores the object received from the server to the cache232. In some embodiments, the appliance 200 updates the object stored inthe cache 232.

The appliance may perform any of the steps 810, 815, 820 and/or 825prior to a user receiving the requested page of step 805 requesting anyone or more of the objects identifies by the URLs or object identifiersof the intercept page. In this manner and in some embodiments, thesystems and methods of the techniques described above are forprefetching the object prior to the user requesting the object. In otherembodiments, the objects identifies by the intercepted pages may bestored in cache, and the stack oriented techniques of method 800 may beperformed to prefreshen or update cached objects in anticipation of auser requesting the object or response to transmission of the URL of theobject to a requester. For example, the prefetcher 704 may store objectidentifiers or URLs to the stack for objects having an expiration periodabout to expire or having a predetermined amount of expiration time.

Although the prefetcher 704 and stack 850 are described above in anexample embodiment of an appliance 200, the stack-oriented systems andmethods described herein may be deployed or implemented on any device,such as an end point of a client 102 or on any device deploying thenetwork optimization engine 250, or any portion thereof

I. Systems and Methods for Prefreshening Cached Objects

Referring now to FIGS. 9A and 9B, systems and methods for an embodimentof a technique referred to as “prefreshening” is depicted. In briefoverview of FIG. 9A, a device, such an appliance 200 or a client 102,performs this prefreshening technique by checking the status and/orupdating cached objects identified in a page intercepted or otherwisereceived by a device. The device includes a network optimization engine250 that intercepts pages communicated via the device, such as a pagetransmitted from a server 106 to a client. The device parses thehyperlinks or uniform resource locators of the page and determines thatan object identified by the page is located in a cache 232. Prior to auser requesting the identified object from the page, a prefresher 904 ofthe device generates a request for a status or an update to the objectin the cache 232 and transmits the generated request to a server 106.The prefresher 904 receives a response from the server 106 indicating astatus of the object or providing an updated version of the object.Based on the response, the device validates or updates the object in thecache 232. In one embodiment, the technique is referred to asprefreshening, because the device validates or updates an object in thecache in anticipation of or prior to a user requesting the objectidentifies by the page.

In some embodiments, the network optimization engine 250 as describedherein, or any portion thereof, such as the protocol accelerator 234,may include a prefresher 904. The prefresher 904 may include software,hardware or any combination of software and hardware. The prefresher 904may comprise an application, program, script, library, process, service,driver, task, thread or any type and form of executable instructions. Insome embodiments, the prefresher 904 includes the prefetcher 704 asdescribed in FIGS. 7A-7D, and 8A-8B. In one embodiment, the prefresher904 includes or provides logic, business rules, functions or operationsfor determining if the object identified by a page is located in thecache 232. In some embodiments, the prefresher 904 interfaces with orcommunicates to the cache manager 232 to determine if the object islocated or stored in the cache 232. In another embodiment, theprefresher 904 queries a storage of the device to determine if theobject is located or exists in the cache 232. In one embodiment, theprefresher 904 is part of the cache manager 232 or the cache manager 232includes the prefresher 904. In other embodiments, the prefresher 904checks or looks up in an index whether an object is stored in the cache232. In some embodiments, the index comprises entries correspondinghashes or fingerprints of objects to objects stored in the cache 232.

In some embodiments, the prefresher 904 includes or provides logic,business rules, functions or operations for generating requests forobjects. The prefresher 904 may generate a request for the status of theobject. In other cases, the prefresher 904 generates a request for theobject. In yet another case, the prefresher 904 generates a conditionalget request for the object. That is, in some embodiments, the prefresher904 generates a request to obtain the object only if the object haschanged or has been modified. In some embodiments, the generated requestcomprises one packet. In other embodiments, the generated requestcomprises multiple packets.

In one embodiment, the prefresher 904 generates a request for an objectlocated in the cache 232. In yet other embodiments, the prefresher 904generates a request 750 identified as speculative or with a QoS prioritylower than non-prefetch requests, such as discussed in conjunction withFIGS. 7A-7D. In some embodiments, the prefresher 904 generates a requestfor the object using an application layer protocol. In anotherembodiment, the prefresher 904 uses the same protocol as the interceptedpage. In some embodiments, the prefresher 904 generates an HTTP requestfor the object. In another embodiment, the prefresher 904 uses anextensible markup language (XML) to generate a request for the object.

In some embodiments, the prefresher 904 transmits the generated requestto a server 106. In one embodiment, the prefresher 904 transmits thegenerated request to the originating server or the server 106transmitting the intercepted page. In other embodiment, the prefresher904 transmits the generated request to one of a plurality of server106A-160N having the object. In many embodiment, the prefresher 904receives a response to the request. Based upon the response, theprefresher 904 may determine the object stored in the cache is valid, ordoes not otherwise need to be updated. In some embodiments, theprefresher 904 determines from the response from the server 106 that theobject in the cache has been modified. In one embodiment, the prefresher904 receives an updated version of the object with the response andstores the object to the cache 232. In yet another embodiment, theprefresher 804 receives with the response the portions of the objectthat have been modified. In some embodiments, the prefresher 904receives a response having a status indicating that the object has beenmodified on the server. In response, the prefresher 904 may generate asecond request to obtain the modified object from a server 106.

In one embodiment, the prefresher 904 is designed and constructed togenerate requests for objects responsive to interception of the pageand/or identification of objects. In other embodiments, the prefresher904 is designed and constructed to generate requests for objectsresponsive to the packet processing engine 240. In another embodiment,the prefresher 904 is designed and constructed to generates requests forobjects responsive to a predetermined number of packets, sent and/orreceived, being processed by the packet processing engine 240. In otherembodiments, the 904 is designed and constructed to generates requestsresponsive to a timer. In one embodiment, the prefresher 904 is designedand constructed to generates requests responsive to network bandwidth orutilization, such as via the bandwidth detector 702 discussed inconjunction with FIG. 7A. In yet another embodiment, the prefresher 904may be responsive to the current load of the device, such as the numberof concurrent connections, and/or CPU, disk and memory usage.

In some embodiments, the prefresher 904 is responsive to one or morepolicies of a policy engine 295 to determine when to generates requestsfor objects and/or transmit requests for objects. As such, theprefresher 904, in some embodiments, may be configured and responsive topolicies based on the identification or type of user, client, server, ornetwork connection. In some embodiments, the prefresher 904 may beresponsive to policies based on any temporal information, such as withina predetermined time threshold of intercepting a page. In otherembodiments, the prefresher 904 may be responsive to policies based onthe type of network traffic, protocol or any portion or content of anetwork packet, such as source and destination addresses and ports, andTCP or IP options. In one embodiment, the prefresher 904 may beresponsive to policies based on any attributes or characteristics of aclient 102 or server 106 such as via end point detection, for example,via a collection agent 304 as described in conjunction with FIG. 3.

Referring now to FIG. 9B, an embodiment of a method 900 for performing atechnique of prefreshening cached objects by a device is depicted. Thedevice may be an appliance 200 or an end node, such as a client 102. Inbrief overview, at step 905, a device intercepts or otherwise receives apage identifying one or more objects. At step 910, the device forwardsthe pages to the requester. At step 915, the device determines theobject identifying by the intercepted page is located or exists in thecache. At step 920, the device generates a request for a status orupdate of the object and transmits the request to the server. At step925, the device receives a response from the server and determines astatus of the object from the response. At step 930, the devicedetermines from the response that the object has not been modified onthe originating server. At step 935, the device determines from theresponse that the object has been modified on the originating server. Insome embodiments, the device receives the updated object from theserver's response. In other embodiments, the device obtains the objectfrom the server in response to the determined status.

In further details, a step 905, the device intercepts or otherwisereceives any type and form of communication from one device to anotherdevice identifying an object, such as a page transmitted from a serverto a client. In one embodiment, the device intercepts a response from aserver to a client's request for an object. In some embodiments, theserver 106 transmits one or more network packets having an applicationprotocol layer payload identifying an object. For example, in oneembodiment, the device intercepts a web or HTTP page transmitted by aserver 106 to a client 102 and the page includes a uniform resourcelocator (URL) or hyperlink identifying an object. In some embodiments,the appliance 200 intercepts a page identified by a URL and the pageidentifies one or more objects. At step 910, the device forwards ortransmits the intercepted page to the requester, such as client 102.

At step 915, the device or prefresher 904 determines if the objectidentified by the intercepted page is located or exists in a cache 232.In some embodiments, the cache 232 is located on the device. In otherembodiments, the cache 232 is located on a second device. In oneembodiment, the prefresher queries the cache 232 to locate the object inthe cache 232. In some embodiments, the prefresher searches for theobject in storage. In other embodiments, the prefresher 904 determinesthe object is in cache via a query or lookup in an object or cacheindex. In yet other embodiments, the prefresher 904 uses an applicationprogramming interface (API), function call or script to determinewhether the object is located in storage of the device or a cache 232.In some embodiments, prefresher 904 sends a query via a message toanother application, program, service, process or task to determine ifthe object is located in a cache 232 of the device intercepting the pageor another device having the cache 232.

At step 920, the device or prefresher 904 generates a request for astatus or update of the object and transmits the request to a server. Insome embodiments, the prefresher 904 generates a request for a status ofthe object. In other embodiments, the prefresher 904 generates a requestto obtain or get the object from a server. In yet another embodiment,the prefresher 904 generates a request for a conditional get of theobject. In some embodiments, the prefresher 904 generates requests for aplurality of objects.

In one embodiment, the prefresher 904 generates requests for an objectwithin a predetermined size. In some embodiments, the prefresher 904skips generating requests for objects in the cache larger than apredetermined size. In yet another embodiment, the prefresher 904 doesnot generate requests for an object smaller than a predetermined size.In one embodiment, the prefresher 904 generates requests for objectslarger than a predetermined size. In yet other embodiments, theprefresher 904 generates requests for objects within a predeterminessize range—larger than a first predetermined size and smaller than asecond predetermined size. In some embodiments, the prefresher 904dynamically determines the size of objects to prefresh in accordancewith a policy of the policy engine 295. In other embodiments, theprefresher 904 dynamically adjusts any predetermined size thresholdsbased on the operation and/or performance of the device, such asresponse time, number of concurrent connections, bandwidth availabilityor bandwidth utilizations, and CPU and memory usage.

In yet other embodiments, the prefresher 904 determines the remainingexpiration time of the object in the cache 232. In one embodiment, theprefresher 904 generates a request if the remaining expiration time iswithin a predetermined threshold. For example, if the object'sexpiration time indicates the object is relatively fresh or recentlyupdates, then the prefresher 904 in one embodiment does not generates arequest to prefreshen the object in the cache 232. In other embodiments,if the object's expiration time indicates the object is about to expireor expire within a predetermined time, then the prefresher 904 inanother embodiment generates a request to prefreshen the object in thecache 232.

The device or prefresher 904 transmits the generated request to a server106. In some embodiments, the prefresher 904 transmits the generatedrequest to the originating server 106 or the server originating theintercepted page. In other embodiments, the prefresher 904 transmits therequest to a server having a copy of the object or also providing theobject. In another embodiment, the prefresher 904 transmits a pluralityof generated requests to one or more servers. In one embodiment, theprefresher 904 transmits one or more requests to a server farm.

At step 925, the device or prefresher 904 receives a response from theserver and determines a status of the object from the response. In someembodiments, the prefresher 904 determines the status of the object fromthe content of the application payload of the response. In otherembodiments, the prefresher 904 determines the status of the object fromheader information of the response. In another embodiment, theprefresher 904 determines the status of the object from an objectheader. In one embodiment, the prefresher 904 determines the status ofthe object from a status identifier in the response. Based on theresponse and/or any content of the response, the prefresher 904determines whether or not the object is valid or fresh.

At step 930, the device determines from the response that the object hasnot been modified on the originating server. For example, in anembodiment of an HTTP conditional get request, the device receives a“304 Not Modified Response.” In one embodiment, the prefresher 904determines the object has not been modified. In some embodiments, theprefresher 904 determines the object in the cache 232 is valid. In otherembodiments, the prefresher 904 determines the object in the cache 232does not need to be updated or freshened. In some embodiments, theprefresher 904 determines the expiration period of the object in thecache has not expired.

At step 935, the device determines from the response that the object hasbeen modified. In one embodiment, the prefresher 904 updates the objectin the cache with the status information. In another embodiment, theprefresher 904 receives the object with the response and stores orotherwise update the object in the cache 232. In one embodiment, theprefresher 904 receives via the response a portion of the object thathas changed and stores the changes to the object in the cache 232 orotherwise updates the object in the cache 232. In other embodiments, theprefresher 904 receives an indicator the object in cache has beenmodified on the server or is otherwise expired. In one embodiment, theprefresher 904 transmits a request to obtain an update of the object, orportion thereof, which has been modified. Upon receipt of the update orchanges portions to the object, the prefresher updates the object in thecache 232.

Although an embodiment of the method 900 is generally described above asprefreshening an object identified via a page, such as via HTTP, themethod 900 may be practiced such as to prefreshen a plurality of objectsidentified via a plurality of sub-pages, hyperlinks, layers of content,or a hierarchy of pages. For example, as illustrated via the hierarchyor sets of pages 950, a first object identifier, URL or hyperlink of afirst page may identify a second object identifier, URL or hyperlink ofa second page, which in turn may identify a third object identifier, URLor hyperlink of a third page, and so on. As such, in some embodiments, apage intercepted by the device may have a hierarchy of sub-pages,hyperlinks, links to objects or content layers of a predetermined depth.Furthermore, although an embodiment of the method 900 is generallydescribed above as prefreshening an object identified via a page, suchas via HTTP, the method 900 may be practiced with non-HTTP protocols,objects and content.

In some embodiments, the prefreshening technique in an embodiment ofmethod 700 is performed on a plurality of sub-pages and objects on thesub-pages identified via the intercepted page. In these embodiments, thedevice may perform steps 915 through 935 on each sub-page, layer orhierarchy to a predetermined depth threshold 952. In some embodiments,the device may performs steps 915 through 935 on a predetermined depththreshold 952 of 2. In some embodiments, the device may performs steps915 through 935 on a predetermined depth threshold 952 of 3, 4 of 5. Inyet another embodiment, the device may perform steps 915 through 935 fora predetermined depth threshold 952 equal to the depth of pages,hyperlinks or content layers that can be traversed or identified via theintercepted page at step 905. In one embodiment, the device may performsteps 915 through 935 until either the predetermined depth threshold 952is reached or another page is intercepted.

In some embodiments, the device may perform steps 915 through 935 on asecond depth or page upon receipt of a request of an object from aprevious depth or page. For example, in one embodiment, the deviceperforms steps 915 through 935 for one or more objects identified via afirst page. The first page may have hyperlinks to sub-pages. The devicethen may perform steps 915 through 935 for a sub-ages upon intercepts arequest from the receiver of the page for one or more objects from thefirst page. Then the device may performs steps 915 through 935 on thenext page or to a predetermined depth threshold 952. In yet anotherembodiment, the device may dynamically adjust the predetermined depththreshold 952 based on any one or more operations or performancecharacteristics of the device, such as response time, number ofconcurrent connections, bandwidth availability or bandwidthutilizations, and CPU and memory usage.

In other embodiments of using this prefreshening technique as describedabove, the objects located in the cache may be identified as stale buthave not been changed or modified on the originating server. In theseembodiments, the prefreshening technique may result mostly in responsesindicating the object has not been modified rather than actual objecttransfers. As such, in some cases, the bandwidth requirements and serverload for this prefreshening technique may be very small or negligible.In one embodiment, this prefreshening technique may be performed usingavailable or ordinary bandwidth without noticeable degradation innetwork or system performance. For example, the device identifies thegenerated requests as having the same priority as othernon-prefreshening requests or network traffic. In other embodiments,this prefreshening technique is performed in conjunction with any typeand form of QoS technique, such as the QoS prefetching techniqueillustrated by FIGS. 7A-7D. In these embodiments, the device generatesprefreshening requests identified as speculative or having a lowerpriority than non-prefreshening requests.

J. Systems and Methods for Determining Whether to Prefetch orFreshen/PreFreshen an Object Based on Header Information of the Object

Referring now to FIGS. 10A and 10B, systems and methods of using objectheader information for determining whether to prefetch an object aredepicted. When a device, such as an appliance 200 or client 102prefetches objects, the device parses intercepted pages looking forobjects identified by links on the page. Then the device obtains theobject targeted or identified by the link. In some embodiments, thedevice does not know whether the object is worth prefetching. As thelink or identifier merely identifies the object, the device may not haveenough information to determine whether the object is a type of objector has content the device desires to prefetch. The prefetching orfreshening technique described herein allows the device to first obtainmore information on the object prior to prefetching the object.

In brief overview of FIG. 10A, a device, such as an appliance 200 orclient 102, includes a network optimization engine 250. The networkoptimization engine 250 may include an HTTP protocol accelerator 234having an embodiment of a prefetcher 704 as described in conjunctionwith FIG. 7A. In other embodiments, such as described in the conjunctionwith FIGS. 9A and 9B, the protocol accelerator 234 or prefetcher 704includes the prefresher 904. In operation of the device and an exampleof HTTP, the device intercepts HTTP pages identifying one or more HTTPobjects. In response to the identification of the HTTP objects orotherwise upon a determination to prefetch, the prefetcher 704 transmitsan HTTP head command or request to a server 106 to obtain headerinformation for the object. In response to the head command, the servermay reply with a response returning the HTTP headers for the identifiedHTTP object. The prefetcher 904 then examines or inspects the headerinformation of the response. Based on the header information, theprefetcher response to determine whether or not to obtain the objectfrom the server 106

Referring now to FIG. 10B, an embodiment of a technique for using objectinformation, such as HTTP header information, to determine whether ornot to fetch or prefetch an object is depicted. Although an embodimentof this method 1000 will be discussed in the content of prefetching,embodiments of this method can be performed for freshening objects orfor prefreshening, such as with the prefresher 904 of FIG. 8A.

In brief overview of method 1000, at step 1005, a device, such as anappliance 200 or client 102, intercepts or otherwise receives acommunication, such as a page, identifying one or more objects. Forexample, the device may intercept a web page having one or more links orURLs to objects served by an originating server 106. As step 1010, thedevice forwards the intercepted page to the requester, such as a client,user or application on a client. At step 1015, the device determines anobject identified via the intercepted page is located or exists in thecache 232. In response to the determination, at step 1020, the devicegenerates a request to obtain header information on the object, such asfor example, via the HTTP head command. The device transmits thegenerated request to a server. At step 1025, the device receives aresponse from the server providing header information on the object,such an HTTP header values for an HTTP object. Based on the headerinformation of the response, the device determines whether or not tofetch or prefetch the object from the server. In one embodiment, thedevice determines not to fetch the object. In these cases, the devicemay update information of the object in the cache 232 based oninformation received via the response. In some embodiments, the devicedetermines to fetch the object based on the response. At step 1030, thedevice generates and transmits a request for the object from the server.At step 1035, the device receives from the server a response includingthe requested object. At step 1040, the devices updates the objectstored in the cache based on the object received in the response at step1035. In some embodiments, the device also updates the information ofthe object in the cache based on the header information received in theresponse at step 1025.

In further details, at step 1005, the device intercepts or receives anytype and form of communication from one device to another deviceidentifying an object, such as a page transmitted from a server to aclient. In one embodiment, the device is an appliance 200. In anotherembodiment, the device is a client 102. In one embodiment, the deviceintercepts a response from a server to a client's request for an object.In some embodiments, the server 106 transmits one or more networkpackets having an application protocol layer payload identifying anobject. For example, in one embodiment, the device intercepts a web orHTTP page transmitted by a server 106 to a client 102 and the pageincludes a uniform resource locator (URL) or hyperlink identifying anobject. In some embodiments, the device, such as a client, intercepts apage identified by a URL and the page identifies one or more objects.

At step 1010, the device forwards or transmits the intercepted page,response or communication to the requester. In one embodiment, thedevice forwards the intercepted page upon interception or immediatelythereafter. In other embodiments, the device forwards the interceptedpage after identifying one or objects on the page. In yet anotherembodiment, the device makes a copy of the intercepted page for furtherprocessing, and forwards the page to the requester upon making the copy.In some embodiments, the device forwards the intercepted communicationto the requester of a client 102. In other embodiments, the deviceforwards the intercepted page to an application, such as a web browser.In another embodiment, the device forwards the page to a user.

At step 1015, the device and/or prefetcher 904 determines whether or notan object identified by the intercepted communication is located, storedor otherwise exists in a cache 232. In some embodiments, the cache 232is located on the device. In other embodiments, the cache 232 is locatedon another device accessible by the appliance 200 or client 10. In oneembodiment, the prefetcher 904 queries the cache 232 to locate theobject in the cache 232. In some embodiments, the prefresher 904searches for the object in storage. In other embodiments, the prefresher904 determines the object is in cache via a query or lookup in an objector cache index. In yet other embodiments, the prefresher 904 uses anapplication programming interface (API), function call or script todetermine whether the object is located in storage of the device or acache 232. In some embodiments, prefresher 904 sends a query via amessage to another application, program, service, process or task todetermine if the object is located in a cache 232 of the deviceintercepting the page or to another device having the cache 232.

At step 1020, in response to determining the identified object is storedor located in a cache 232, the device and/or prefetcher 904 generates arequest to obtain object information or header information of theobject. In one embodiment, the prefetcher 904 generates an HTTP headcommand to request header information on the identified object. In otherembodiments, the prefetcher 904 generates a request to query or obtaininformation on the object using any type and form of applicationprotocol. For example, in one embodiment, the prefetcher 904 may use XMLlanguage to request object information or object header information. Insome embodiments, the prefetcher 904 generates a request to obtainobject information from a database system or object repository. In otherembodiments, the prefetcher 904 generates a request to make a remoteprocedure call to obtain properties or attributes of an instance of theobject in a remote system or application. In some embodiments, theprefetcher 904 generates the request with a priority for speculativeprefetching such as described in conjunction with FIGS. 7A-7D. In otherembodiments, the prefetcher 904 uses any type and form of QoS schedulingand/or priorities to schedule and transmit the generated request.

Further to step 1020, the device transmits the generated request forobject information to a server 106. In one embodiment, the devicetransmits the generated request to the server originating the page. Inanother embodiment, the device transmits the generated request to asecond server. In some embodiments, the device transmits the generatedrequest to a server farm. In other embodiments, the device transmits thegenerated request to a second appliance 200′. In one embodiment, thedevice transmits the generated request in accordance with any QoSpriority assigned to or associated with the generated request. In someembodiments, the device transmits the generated request at a prioritylower than non-prefetching requests. In other embodiments, the devicetransmits the generated request at a priority lower than thenon-prefetching requests received and processed by the device fromclients, users or applications on a client.

At step 1025, the device receives a response from the server havinginformation identifying information on the object. In one embodiment,the device receives a response having object header information. Forexample, in an embodiment of HTTP, the device receives a response ofhaving any one or more HTTP headers. In some embodiments, the responsehas one or more of the following HTTP headers: accept-ranges, age,allow, cache-control, content-encoding, content-language,content-length, content-location, content-type, date, etag, expires,last-modified, location, pragma, proxy-authenticate, retry-after,server, and vary. In other embodiments, the device receives a responsehaving an XML content identifying one or more attributes, properties orname-value pairs of an object. In another embodiment, the devicereceives a response having a message with name-value pairs identifyinginformation of the object. In yet some embodiments, the device receivesa remote procedure call response identifying properties or attributes ofthe object. In one embodiment, the device receives object informationidentifying one or more portions of the object that have been changed ormodified.

Based on the object information received in the response, the devicedetermines whether or not to fetch, pre-fetch or otherwise obtain theobject from a server. In one embodiment, if the object informationindicates the object stored in cache is expired, the prefetcher 904determines to obtain the object from a server. In another embodiment, ifthe object information indicates the object stored in cache is about toexpire, the prefetcher 904 determines to obtain the object from aserver. In some embodiments, if the object information indicates theobject has been modified on the originating server, the prefetcher 904determines to obtain the object from a server. In other embodiments, ifthe object information indicates the size of the object is within apredetermined threshold, the prefetcher 904 determines to obtain theobject from a server. In yet another embodiment, if the objectinformation indicates the type and/or content of the object isacceptable, suitable or otherwise processable by the device, prefetcher904, and/or cache 232, the prefetcher 904 determines to obtain theobject from a server.

In response to determining to obtain the object from a server, at step1035, the device and/or prefetcher 904 generates a request for theobject. In one embodiment, prefetcher 904 generates an HTTP get requestfor the object. In some embodiments, the prefetcher 904 generates aconditional request for the object, such as an HTTP conditional get. Inone embodiment, the prefetcher 904 generates a request to obtainportions of the object that have been modified. In other embodiments,the prefetcher generates a request for the object using any type andform of application layer protocol, such as XML. In one embodiment, theprefetcher 904 generates a request to obtain the object from a database.In other embodiments, the prefetcher 904 generates a request to obtainthe object from a location identified by the object information, such asvia an HTTP location header. In another embodiment, the prefetcher 904generates a request to obtain the object from another device, such as aclient 102, appliance 200 or a second cache 232′. In some embodiments,the prefetcher 904 generates a speculative request for the object asdescribed in conjunction with FIGS. 7A-7D. In one embodiment, theprefetcher 904 generates the request for the object with a QoSassociated with or assigned to prefetching requests and/or response.

At step 1030, the device transmits the generated request for the objectto a server 106. In some embodiments, the device transmits the generatedrequest to a server farm. In other embodiments, the device transmits thegenerated request to a second device or appliance 200′. In oneembodiment, the device transmits the generated request in accordancewith any QoS priority assigned to or associated with the generatedrequest. In some embodiments, the device transmits the generated requestat a priority lower than non-prefetching requests. In other embodiments,the device transmits the generated request at a priority lower than thenon-prefetching requests received and processed by the device fromclients, users or applications on a client.

At step 1035, the device receives a response to the generated andtransmits request of step 1030. In one embodiment, the device receives aresponse having the object. For example, the device may receive an HTTPresponse having an HTTP body including the object. In some embodiments,the device receives the object via an application layer protocol. In oneembodiment, the device receives the object via XML. In otherembodiments, the device receives one or more portions of the object thathave been modified. In another embodiment, in response to a conditionalget, the device receives a response without the object. In thisembodiment, the device may receive a second object header information.For example, the device may receive a second set of one or more HTTPheaders identifying the object has not been modified.

At step 1040, the device and/or prefetcher 904 updates the object, orinformation thereof, stored in the cache 232. In one embodiment, theprefetcher 904 stores an updated version of the object in the cache 232.In another embodiment, the prefetcher 904 updates or stores the changesto portions of the object to the cache 232. In some embodiments, theprefetcher 905 updates object information of the cached object. Forexample, the prefetcher 904 updates expiration or validation informationof the object in the cache 232.

In some embodiments, at step 1025, the device and/or prefetcher 904 doesnot fetch, pre-fetch or otherwise obtain the object from a server basedon the received object information. In one embodiment, if the objectinformation indicates the object stored in cache is fresh or otherwisenot expires, the prefetcher 904 determines not to obtain the object froma server. In another embodiment, if the object information indicates theobject stored in cache is not to expire for a predetermined time period,the prefetcher 904 determines not to obtain the object from a server. Insome embodiments, if the object information indicates the object has notbeen modified on the originating server or is otherwise fresh, theprefetcher 904 determines not to obtain the object from a server. Inother embodiments, if the object information indicates the size of theobject exceeds a predetermined threshold, the prefetcher 904 determinesnot to obtain the object from a server. In yet another embodiment, ifthe object information indicates a type and/or content of the object isnot acceptable, suitable or otherwise processable by the device or cache232, the prefetcher 904 determines not to obtain the object from aserver.

Although the device and/or prefetcher may determine not to fetch,pre-fetch or obtain the object at step 1025, the device and/orprefetcher 904 may update information on the object in the cache 232based on the received object information. As such, the device and/orprefetcher 904 may update object information in the cache 232 at step1040. For example, in the case of HTTP, the device and/or prefetcher 904may use any of the HTTP header fields to update the object in the cache232. In one embodiment, the prefetcher 904 compares the object headerinformation receives at step 1025 with the header information stored inthe cache 232. In some embodiments, if the information is different, theprefetcher 904 and/or cache manager 232 updates the header informationstores in the cache 232.

Although this technique is generally described above in an embodiment ofHTTP and obtaining HTTP header information of an object, the techniquesdescribed herein may be used with any other protocol in whichinformation about an object may be obtained without fetching the objectitself.

Furthermore, although the object header information technique of method1000 is generally described in connection with prefetching objects, thistechnique can be used by a cache manager 232 or prefresher 904 tofreshen or pre-freshen a cached object, such as with the prefresheningtechniques described in conjunction with FIGS. 9A and 9B. In someembodiments, the cache manager 232 uses these headers to update thefreshness of an object that is stored in the cache 232. For example, inthe case of HTTP headers, the “Expires,” “max-age,” and “Last-Modified”header fields that are returned in the header information are applied bythe cache manager 232 to the cached object. In one embodiment, the cachemanager 232 uses the updated header information to mark a stale objectin the cache 232 as fresh. In another embodiment, the cache manager 232uses the updated header information to extend the freshness lifetime ofa cached object that is already marked fresh.

Referring now to FIG. 10C, an embodiment of a method for prefetchingobject header information is depicted. In some embodiments, the cachingdevice caches the status of object and may not have the object cached.For example, the caching device may cache the HTTP header of an HTTPbased object. In some case, these cached headers may be considered staleby the client or the cache. The caching device may check the headerinformation of an object with the origin server in advance of theclient's request for the object. If the header of the object has change,the device stores the updated headers in the cache. If the clientrequest the headers, either with an HTTP header command or implicitlythrough an “if-modified since” GET command, the device may service therequest with the cached header information.

In brief overview of method 1050, at step 1055, a device, such as anappliance 200 or client 102, intercepts or otherwise receives acommunication, such as a page, identifying one or more objects. Forexample, the device may intercept a web page having one or more links orURLs to objects served by an originating server 106. As step 1060, thedevice forwards the intercepted page to the requester, such as a client,user or application on a client. At step 1065, the device determines theheader information for an object identified via the intercepted page islocated or exists in the cache 232. In response to the determination, atstep 1070, the device generates a request to obtain the headerinformation of the object, such as for example, via the HTTP headcommand. The device transmits the generated request to a server. At step1075, the device receives a response from the server providing headerinformation on the object, such an HTTP header values for an HTTPobject. At step 1080, the devices updates the header information forobject stored in the cache based on the header information received bythe response from the server.

In further details, at step 1055, the caching device intercepts any typeand form of communication from one device to another device identifyingan object, such as a page transmitted from a server to a client. In oneembodiment, the device is an appliance 200. In another embodiment, thedevice is a client 102. In one embodiment, the device intercepts aresponse from a server to a client's request for an object. In someembodiments, the server 106 transmits one or more network packets havingan application protocol layer payload identifying an object.

At step 1060, the device forwards or transmits the intercepted page,response or communication to the requester. In one embodiment, thedevice forwards the intercepted page upon interception or immediatelythereafter. In other embodiments, the device forwards the interceptedpage after identifying one or objects on the page. In yet anotherembodiment, the device makes a copy of the intercepted page for furtherprocessing, and forwards the page to the requester upon making the copy.In some embodiments, the device forwards the intercepted communicationto the requester of a client 102. In other embodiments, the deviceforwards the intercepted page to an application, such as a web browser.In another embodiment, the device forwards the page to a user.

At step 1065, the device and/or prefetcher 904 determines whether or notheader information for an object identified by the interceptedcommunication is located, stored or otherwise exists in a cache 232. Insome embodiments, the cache 232 is located on the device. In otherembodiments, the cache 232 is located on another device accessible bythe appliance 200 or client 10. In one embodiment, the prefetcher 904queries the cache 232 to locate the object header in the cache 232. Insome embodiments, the prefresher 904 searches for the object header instorage. In other embodiments, the prefresher 904 determines the objectheader is in cache via a query or lookup in an object or cache index. Inyet other embodiments, the prefresher 904 uses an applicationprogramming interface (API), function call or script to determinewhether the object header is located in storage of the device or a cache232. In some embodiments, prefresher 904 sends a query via a message toanother application, program, service, process or task to determine ifthe header information for the object is located in a cache 232 of thedevice intercepting the page or to another device having the cache 232.

At step 1070, in response to determining the header information for theidentified object is stored or located in a cache 232, the device and/orprefetcher 904 generates a request to obtain header information of theobject. In one embodiment, the prefetcher 904 generates an HTTP headcommand to request header information on the identified object. In otherembodiments, the prefetcher 904 generates a request to query or obtainheader information on the object using any type and form of applicationprotocol. For example, in one embodiment, the prefetcher 904 may use XMLlanguage to request object header information. In some embodiments, theprefetcher 904 generates a request to obtain the object's headerinformation from a database system or object repository. In someembodiments, the prefetcher 904 generates the request with a priorityfor speculative prefetching such as described in conjunction with FIGS.7A-7D. In other embodiments, the prefetcher 904 uses any type and formof QoS scheduling and/or priorities to schedule and transmit thegenerated request.

Further to step 1070, the device transmits the generated request for theheader information of the identified object to a server 106. In oneembodiment, the device transmits the generated request to the serveroriginating the page. In another embodiment, the device transmits thegenerated request to a second server. In some embodiments, the devicetransmits the generated request to a server farm. In other embodiments,the device transmits the generated request to a second appliance 200′.In one embodiment, the device transmits the generated request inaccordance with any QoS priority assigned to or associated with thegenerated request. In some embodiments, the device transmits thegenerated request at a priority lower than non-prefetching requests. Inother embodiments, the device transmits the generated request at apriority lower than the non-prefetching requests received and processedby the device from clients, users or applications on a client.

At step 1075, the caching device receives a response from the serverhaving information identifying the header information on the object. Forexample, in an embodiment of HTTP, the device receives a response ofhaving any one or more HTTP headers. In some embodiments, the responsehas one or more of the following HTTP headers: accept-ranges, age,allow, cache-control, content-encoding, content-language,content-length, content-location, content-type, date, etag, expires,last-modified, location, pragma, proxy-authenticate, retry-after,server, and vary. In other embodiments, the device receives a responsehaving an XML content identifying one or more attributes, properties orname-value pairs providing header information for object. In anotherembodiment, the device receives a response having a message withname-value pairs identifying header information of the object. In yetsome embodiments, the device receives a remote procedure call responseidentifying properties or attributes of the object's header.

At step 1080, the caching device and/or prefetcher 904 updates theobject's header information stored in the cache 232. In one embodiment,the prefetcher 904 stores an updated version of the header in the cache232. In another embodiment, the prefetcher 904 updates or stores thechanges to portions of the object header to the cache 232. For example,the prefetcher 904 updates expiration or validation information of theheader information in the cache 232. In other embodiments, the devicedetermines the header information has not changes and does not updatethe cached header information.

In some embodiments, upon prefetching the header information, thecaching device may determine whether or not to prefetch the objectidentified in the intercepted communication. In one embodiment, themethod 1050 continues at step 1025 of the embodiment of method 1000described in FIG. 10B.

In many cases, a large proportion of cache hits are “near-hits”—objectsthat are in the cache and marked as stale, but are identical to thecontent on the server. A prefreshening algorithm that requests onlyheader information such as via the HTTP head command will givesignificant benefits in determining whether or not to fetch, prefetch,prefresh or freshening the object but will use almost no or littlebandwidth

K. Systems and Methods for Prefetching or Using Non-Cacheable Content ofDynamically Generated Pages as Compression History

Referring now to FIGS. 11A-11D systems and methods for usingnon-cacheable content of dynamically generated pages as data in acompression history between compressing and/or caching devices isdepicted. In some cases, a server transmits to a first user apersonalized version, or dynamically generated version of a requestedweb page. This dynamically generated page may not be identified ascacheable or under cache control. For example, one or more objects ofthe dynamically generated by the server may not be identified by theserver as cacheable. The server may also transmit a personalized versionof the web page to a second user. In some cases, portions of the data ofthe first user's personalized web page may be the same as portions ofthe second user's version of the same page. Similarly, the personalizedversion of the page the first user subsequently receives, say after anhour from the first request, may be the same or similar to the firstprevious personalized web-page of the first user. The systems andmethods of the compression engine described below leverage thesimilarities of data between non-cacheable dynamically generated pagesto improve compressibility of content communicated between compressingdevices.

Referring to FIG. 11A, embodiments of systems for using non-cacheablecontent as data of a compression history used between compressiondevices are depicted. In brief overview, a first device, such as a firstappliance 200, and a second device, such as client 102 or a secondappliance 200′ compress communications transmitted between the devicesusing data of a compression history. The first appliance 200 has a firstcompression history 1138 that is shared, synchronized or used inconjunction with a second compression history 1138′ of the secondappliance 200′ or the client 102. The first appliance 200 interceptscontent from a server 106. A compression engine 238 of the appliance 200compresses the intercepted content using data from the compressionhistory 1138. The first appliance 200 transmits the compressed content.The second appliance 200′ or client 102 receives the compressed contentand a second compression engine 238′ decompresses the compressed contentusing the data from the second compression history 1138′. The secondcompression history 1138′ has the same data of the first compressionhistory 1138 used by the compression engine 238 of appliance 200.Likewise, the second appliance 200′ or client 102 transmits compressedcontent compressed via compression engine 238′ and the secondcompression history 1138′. The first appliance 200 receives thecompressed content and decompressed the content using the shared data ofthe first compression history 1138.

In further overview and as illustrated by the system embodiment at thetop of FIG. 11A, the first appliance 200 may intercept non-cacheablecontent 1150 transmitted by a server 106 to a client 102. For example,the non-cacheable content 1150 may include a dynamically generated orpersonalized web page for a first user of a client 102. Although theappliance 200 identifies the content as non-cacheable, the appliance 200stores the content to the compression history 1138, which may also bethe cache 232, or a portion thereof. The second appliance 200′ and/orclient 102 may also intercept the non-cacheable content 1150, identifythe content as non-cacheable and store the non-cacheable content to thecompression history 1138′. The appliance 200, 200′ and/or client 102 mayintercept multiple pages of non-cacheable content 1150 and store thecontent to the respective compression histories 1138, 1138′.

As illustrated by the system embodiment located in the lower half ofFIG. 11A, the first user or a second user of the client 102 may requesta second dynamically generated or personalized page from the server 106.The first appliance 200 intercepts the second non-cacheable content 1152transmitted by the server 106. A portion of data of the secondnon-cacheable content 1152 comprises the same data as a portion of dataof the first non-cacheable content 1150 stored in the compressionhistory 1138. The compression engine 238 generates a compressed version1155 of the non-cacheable content 1152 based on the first non-cacheablecontent 1150 stored in the compression history 1138. The first appliance200 transmits the compressed content 1155 to the client 102 or secondappliance 200′. The client 102 or second appliance 200′ intercepts thecompressed content 1155, and the compression engine 238′ decompressesthe compressed version 1155 of the second non-cacheable content 1152using the first non-cacheable content 1150 stored in the secondcompression history 1138′.

In some embodiments, the non-cacheable content 1150, 1152 includes oneor more dynamically generated objects. In one embodiment, thenon-cacheable content 1150, 1152 is identified as non-cacheable viaidentification of the dynamically generated content. In otherembodiments, the non-cacheable content 1150, 1152 includes one or moreobjects not identified as cacheable or identified as non-cacheable. Inanother embodiment, a first object of the dynamically generated contentis identified as cacheable or is under cache control while a secondobject is not identified as cacheable or is not under cache control. Insome embodiments, the non-cacheable content 1150, 1152 includes HTTPcontent not having any HTTP cache-control headers or HTTP directives. Inone embodiment, the non-cacheable content 1150, 1152 includes one ormore objects not having HTTP cache-control headers or directives. Inanother embodiment, the non-cacheable content 1150, 1152 includes one ormore object snot having HTTP etag directive information. In yet anotherembodiment, the non-cacheable content 1150, 1152 includes HTTP headersor directives identifying one or more objects as not cacheable. In someembodiments, non-cacheable content 1150, 1152 includes HTTP headers ordirectives information or directing a receiver to not cache one or moreobjects. In one embodiment, the non-cacheable content is dynamicallygenerated based on parameters or information from a request for thecontent.

The appliance 200, 200′ and client 102 (also referred herein as acompressing or compression device) may store any type and form of datato a compression history 1138, 1138′, sometimes referred to ascompression history 1138. In some embodiments, the compressing deviceintercepts network packets and stores any payload, or portion thereof,of any protocol layer of a network packet to the compression history1138. In one embodiment, the compressing device stores application dataobtained via an application layer protocol to the compression history1138. In some embodiments, the compressing device stores headers of thenetwork packet, such as application layer header of an HTTP payload, tothe compression history 1138. In other embodiments, the compressingdevice does not store headers of the network packet.

The compressing engine 238 may store the compression history 1138 instorage 128, such as disk, memory, such as RAM, or a combination ofstorage and memory. In some embodiments, the compression engine 238 usesan object or data index to reference or identify corresponding objectsor data stored in the compression history. In one embodiment, thecompression engine 238 uses an object index stored in memory. In otherembodiments, the compression engine 238 uses an object index stored todisk. The object index comprises any type and form of indexing schemefor corresponding an index to an object in the compression history 1138.In one embodiment, the object index is maintained in memory while thecorresponding object is stored the compression history 1138. In someembodiments, the object index comprises an entry that references oridentifies a location or pointer to the object stored in the compressionhistory 1138. In one embodiment, the object index uses any type of hash,checksum or fingerprinting function on a name or identifier of theobject as an entry or index. In some embodiments, the object indexperforms a hash, checksum or fingerprint on the object or portion ofdata in the compression history 1138. In another embodiment, the entryof the object index is a name or identifier of the object. In someembodiments, the value for the entry or index is a location identifierfor the location in storage of the object. For example, the index valuemay comprise a pointer to a starting address or location of the object.

In yet another embodiment, the compression engine 238 establishes,organizes, arranges or maintains logical storage units for thecompression history, referred to as “chunks”. The compression engine 238may maintain a unique identifier for each logical storage unit andassociate a size and starting and end points in storage of the “chunk”.In one example, the index value includes an identifier of a chunk and anoffset into the chunk for the starting location of the object. Thecompression engine 238 may store in the index entries identifyingportions of data corresponding to an identifier of the logical storageunit.

In one embodiment, the compression engine 238 stores to a compressionhistory 1138 any amount and type of previously transmitted datatraversing the compressing device or otherwise intercepted by thedevice. In some embodiments, the compression engine 238 stores all datathat passes through the device to the compression history 1138. In otherembodiments, a compression engine 238 may select portions of data from adata stream to be stored in the compression history 1138 based on anyfactor, including without limitation the data stream source, data streamdestination, transmission protocol, application protocols, availabledisk space, current disk usage, available memory space, currentavailable bandwidth, and size of the data portions. In some embodiments,the compression engine 238 may store data compressed in the compressionhistory 1138 using any type and form of a lossless compressionalgorithm. In other embodiments, the compression engine 238 may storedata encrypted in the compression history 1138 using any type and formof encryption algorithm.

In writing data, such as a portion of intercepted network traffic, tothe compression history 1138, a device, such as the client 102 orappliance 200, may create a shared identifier to enable the device and adevice receiving the transmitted data to refer to the portion of data inlater communications. In one embodiment, this identifier may be a uniqueidentifier between the two devices. In other embodiments, this sharedidentifier may be a globally unique identifier among a plurality ofdevices. The shared identifier may be created, for example, by trackingthe number of bytes sent via a connection between the devices andassigning successive identifiers to successive bytes transmitted.

In operation, the appliance or client via compression engine 238identifies portions of data from an intercepted data stream in thecompression history 1138. The appliance then replaces those portions ofthe data stream with identifiers identifying the locations of thecompression history 1138 having those portions. Upon receiving the datastream having a reference to a location in the compression history, thereceiving device, such as client 102 or appliance 200 searches itscompression history 1138 for the identified portion of data. The devicethen replaces the identifier in the data stream with the identifiedportion of data, and forwards the uncompressed data steam to theintended recipient. In one embodiment, the client forwards theuncompressed data to a requester, such as a browser or application onthe client. In another embodiment, the appliance forwards theuncompressed data to the client 102 or a second appliance 200′.

Referring now to FIG. 11B, an embodiment of a method 1100 for usingnon-cacheable content of dynamically generated pages as data in acompression history between compressing and/or caching devices isdepicted. In brief overview, at step 1105, a device intercepts orotherwise receives a first page transmitted via a first session to aclient. The first page identifies non-cacheable content dynamicallygenerated by the server. At step 1110, the device stored thenon-cacheable content of the first page to a compression history. Atstep 1115, the device intercepts a second page transmitted via a secondsession to a client. The second page had non-cacheable content. At step1120, the device determines at least a portion of the second pagematches non-cacheable content of the first page stored to a compressionhistory. At step 1125, the device compresses the portion of the secondpage using the matching non-cacheable content of the first page in thecompression history. At step 1130, the device communicates or forwardsthe compressed content to the target recipient.

In further details, at step 1105, a device, such as client 102 orappliance 200, intercepts a first page transmitted via any type and formof session between a 102 client and a server 106. The device interceptsany type and form of communication from one device to another deviceidentifying a non-cacheable object, such as a page transmitted from aserver to a client. In one embodiment, the device intercepts a responsefrom a server to a client's request for a dynamically generated object.In some embodiments, the server 106 transmits one or more networkpackets having an application protocol layer payload identifying anon-cacheable object. For example, in one embodiment, the deviceintercepts a web or HTTP page transmitted by a server 106 to a client102 and the page includes a uniform resource locator (URL) or hyperlinkidentifying a non-cacheable object.

The session may include any type and form of application layer session,such as an HTTP session. In one embodiment, the session may include asession layer session such as SSL or TLS. In yet another embodiment, thesession may include any session communication via a transport layerconnection, such as a TCP/IP connection. In some embodiments, thesession is established for or on behalf of a user, such as user ofclient 102 or an application thereof.

The first page identifies non-cacheable content such as dynamicallygenerated by the server 106. In some embodiments, the first page is aversion of content from the server personalized for a requester, such asa user or an application. In other embodiments, the first page comprisesdynamically generated content based on parameters or information from arequest for the content. In another embodiment, the first page includesupdates or changes to one or more previously served objects.

At step 1110, the device stores the non-cacheable content 1150 of thefirst page to a compression history. In one embodiment, the deviceidentifies the non-cacheable content and in response to theidentification, stores the non-cacheable content, or portion thereof, toa compression history 1138. In some embodiments, device identifies anobject as non-cacheable and stores the identified object to thecompression history 1138. In other embodiments, the device identifiesthe page has dynamically generated content and stores the content to thecompression history 1138. In another embodiment, the device identifiesthat the server indicates an object is not cacheable or should not becached, and the device stores the object to the compression history1138. For example, an application layer header of the page or for theobject may identify the object as non-cacheable.

At step 1110′, in some embodiments, a second device, such as client 102or appliance 200′ also intercepts and stores the non-cacheable contentintercepted and forwarded by the first device, such as appliance 200. Inthese embodiments, a second compression engine 238 and secondcompression history 1138′ stores non-cacheable content in thecompression history to synchronize or otherwise maintain shared portionsof data between compressing devices. In other embodiments, the firstdevice, such as appliance 200, transmits portions of the compressionhistory 1138 to the second device, such as client 102, for the seconddevice to store in the compression history 1138′.

In many embodiments, the device performs steps 1105 and 1110 multiplestimes across one or more sessions and/or for one or more users. In oneembodiment, the device intercepts and stores non-cacheable content for afirst session. In another embodiment, the device intercepts and storesnon-cacheable content for a second session. In some embodiments, thedevice intercepts and stores non-cacheable content for a first user. Inother embodiments, the device intercepts and stores non-cacheablecontent for a second user. In some embodiments, the device interceptsand stores non-cacheable content of a first type of session, such as anHTTP session. In other embodiments, the device intercepts and storesnon-cacheable content of a second type of session, such as webapplication session or hosted service session. In yet other embodiments,the device intercepts and stores non-cacheable content of one or moresession protocols, such as a first session protocol of SSL and a secondsession protocol of ICA. In still other embodiments, the deviceintercepts and stores non-cacheable content of a first protocol layer ofa network stack and a second protocol layer of a network stack.

At step 1115, the device intercepts or otherwise receives a second pageto a client transmitted via the first session or a second session. Inone embodiment, the device intercepts a second page transmitted via thefirst session, such as to a first user. In another embodiment, thedevice intercepts a second page transmitted via a second session, suchas a new session with a second user. In yet another embodiment, thedevice intercepts a second page of second session with the first user.In some embodiments, a server transmits the second page via a secondsession using a different session or application protocol than the firstsession. In yet one embodiment, the second page is transmitted via asecond session for an application or hosted services different than orthe same as the application or host service of the first session.

As described above in connection with the first page, the second pagemay include any type and form of non-cacheable content 1152 as describedherein. For example, the second page includes a personalized version ofa web page or HTTP content for a second user. In another embodiment, thesecond page includes one or more objects of the first page butdynamically generated by a different request. In one embodiment, therequest to dynamically generate content for the first page has differentparameters than a request to dynamically generate the second page. Insome embodiments, the second page has the same cacheable content as thefirst page. In other embodiments, a portion of the non-cacheable contentof the first page is the same as the second page.

At step 1120, the device determines at least a portion of the secondpage matches non-cacheable content of the first page stored to acompression history. In some embodiments, the compression engine 238performs a match of data of the intercepted page to a compressionhistory responsive to identifying non-cacheable content in theintercepted page. In one embodiment, the compression engine 238determines the non-cacheable content of the second page was transmittedfrom the same server as other non-cacheable content stored to thecompression history 1138. In another embodiment, the compression engine238 determines the second page was transmitted via the same session asthe non-cacheable content stored in the compression history 1138. Inother embodiments, the compression engine 238 determines the second pagewas transmitted to the same client or application of the client as thenon-cacheable content stored in the compression history 1138. In stillother embodiments, the compression engine 238 determines the second pagewas transmitted to the same user as the non-cacheable content stored inthe compression history 1138. In one embodiment, the compression engine238 determines the second page has the same cacheable objects as thefirst page and therefore determines the non-cacheable content may besimilar. In yet another embodiment, the compression engine matches aportion of a cacheable object of an intercepted page to a portion ofnon-cacheable content stored in the compression history 1138. In afurther embodiment, the compression engine 238 matched a portion of anon-cacheable object of an intercepted page to a portion of a cacheablecontent stored in the compression history 1138.

In one embodiment, the compression engine 238 of the client or appliancedetermines that a sequence of one or more bytes of data in thenon-cacheable content of the second page matches data in the compressionhistory 1138. The compression engine 238 may use any type offingerprinting algorithm or scheme to determine a match. In someembodiments, the compression engine compares a fingerprint of a portionof data of the intercepted second page to one or more fingerprints ofportions of data in the compression history 1138. In one embodiment, thecompression engine 238 compares a fingerprint of a portion ofnon-cacheable content 1152 of second page with a fingerprint of aportion of non-cacheable content 1150 of the first page stored in thecompression history 1138. In one embodiment, the compression engine 238determines a match by matching a fingerprint of data non-cacheablecontent to a fingerprint in the object index of the compression history1138. In another embodiment, the compression engine 238 determines amatch by searching for a sequence of data of the interceptednon-cacheable content to data in the compression history 11338.

At step 1125, the device compresses the portion of the second page usingthe matching non-cacheable content of the first page in the compressionhistory. In some embodiments, the compression engine 238 compresses allor any portion of the intercepted page to form a compressedrepresentation 1155 of the second page. In one embodiment, thecompression engine 238 compresses one or more portions of thenon-cacheable content of the second page using one or more portions ofthe non-cacheable first page stored in the compression history 1138. Insome embodiments, the compression engine 238 compresses a firstnon-cacheable object of the second page using a portion of anon-cacheable object of the first page stored in the compression history1138. In yet another embodiment, the compression engine 238 compresses afirst non-cacheable object of the second page using a portion of a firstnon-cacheable object and a portion of a second non-cacheable object inthe compression history 1138. In other embodiments, the compressionengine 238 compresses at least a portion of the personalized content ofthe second page using one or more portions of personalized pages storedin the compression history 1138. In still one embodiment, thecompression engine 238 compresses at least a portion of a cacheableobject of the second page using a portion of non-cacheable content ofthe first page stored in the compression history 1138. In oneembodiment, the compression engine 238 compresses at least a portion ofa non-cacheable object of the second page using a portion of cacheablecontent stored in the compression history 1138.

At step 1130, the device communicates the compressed content 1155 to theintended receiver or target recipient. In some embodiments, a client 102communicates the compressed content to an appliance 200 or server 106.In another embodiment, the client 102 communicates the compressedcontent to an application on the client 102, such as a browser. In otherembodiments, the appliance 102 communicates the compressed content to aclient 102 or a second appliance 200′. The receiver, such as client 102,intercepts the compressed content 1155, and decompresses the compressedcontent 1155 using its copy of the data in the compression history 1138′corresponding to the compression used by the sending device.

Referring now to FIGS. 11C and 11D, embodiments of systems and methodfor prefetching non-cacheable content or objects and storing to acompression history is depicted. In brief overview of FIG. 11C, anappliance 200 having a network optimization engine 250 is depicted. Thedevice, such as appliance 200 or client 102, intercepts or receivescommunications or pages served from an originating server 106 ortransmitted via another appliance 200′ and forwards the page to therequesting client. The received page may identify one or morenon-cacheable objects, for example via uniform resource locators orhyperlinks. The appliance via the prefetcher 704 generates a request1160 to obtain the non-cacheable object from a server 106. The requestmay be considered a prefetch in that the user receiving the page mayhave not yet requested the object identified by the page but theappliance 200 requests the object in anticipation of intercepting arequest for the object from the user. The prefetcher 704 transmits tothe originating server 106 the request to prefetch the non-cacheableobject. The appliance receives a response from the server including thenon-cacheable object and stores the object in the compression historyused by the appliance.

As previously discussed in conjunction with FIGS. 7A-7D, the prefetcher704 includes or provides logic, business rules, functions or operationsfor generating requests or packet(s) for the request. In one embodiment,the prefetcher generates one or more packets for either a request or aresponse. In some embodiments, the prefetcher 704 generates a request toprefetch identified objects, such as objects identified by interceptedpages and initiates the transmission of the generated request to aserver 106. In one embodiment, the prefetcher 704 generates requests1160 for non-cacheable objects identified via the page. In otherembodiments, the prefetcher generates a request 1160 for a non-cacheableobject based on a user. In another embodiment, the prefetcher generatesa request 1160 for a non-cacheable object that the server dynamicallygenerates. In one case, the request 1160 causes the server todynamically generate the non-cacheable object, such as an object for apersonalized web page. In some embodiments, the prefetcher 704 generatesa non-cacheable object request 1160 identified as speculative or with aQoS priority lower than non-prefetch requests. In other embodiments, theprefetcher 704 receives the response to the prefetch request and storesthe non-cacheable object of the response to the compression history1138.

Although the prefetcher 704 is illustrated as a part of the protocolaccelerator, the prefetcher may be included in any part of the networkoptimization engine 250. For example, in some embodiments, thecompression engine 238 comprises the prefetcher for prefetchingcacheable and/or non-cacheable objects for the compression history 1138.

Referring now to FIG. 11D, an embodiment of steps of a method 1170 forprefetching non-cacheable content for the compression history 1138 isdepicted. In brief overview, at step 1172, a device, such as theappliance 200 or client 102, intercepts or otherwise receive acommunication identifying one or more non-cacheable objects. At step1174, the device forwards the communication to the requester. At step1176, the device generates a request for the non-cacheable object andtransmits the generated request to a server. At step 1178, the devicestores the non-cacheable object to the compression history 1138. Thecompression engine 238 may use the stored non-cacheable object tocompress content of subsequent communications between one or moreclients and one or more servers.

In further details, at step 1172, the device intercepts or receives anytype and form of communication from one device to another deviceidentifying a non-cacheable object, such as a page transmitted from aserver to a client. In one embodiment, the device is an appliance 200.In another embodiment, the device is a client 102. In one embodiment,the device intercepts a response from a server to a client's request fora non-cacheable object. In some embodiments, the server 106 transmitsone or more network packets having an application protocol layer payloadidentifying a non-cacheable object. For example, in one embodiment, thedevice intercepts a web or HTTP page transmitted by a server 106 to aclient 102 and the page includes a uniform resource locator (URL) orhyperlink identifying a non-cacheable object. In some embodiments, thedevice, such as a client, intercepts a page identified by a URL and thepage identifies one or more non-cacheable objects.

At step 1174, the device forwards or transmits the page, response orcommunication to the requester. In one embodiment, the device forwardsthe page upon interception, receipt or immediately thereafter. In otherembodiments, the device forwards the page after identifying one orobjects on the page. In yet another embodiment, the device makes a copyof the page for further processing, and forwards the page to therequestor upon making the copy. In some embodiments, the device forwardsthe received communication to the requester of a client 102. In otherembodiments, the device forwards the intercepted page to an application,such as a web browser. In another embodiment, the device forwards thepage to a user.

At step 1176, in response to identifying the non-cacheable object, thedevice and/or prefetcher 704 generates a request 1160 to thenon-cacheable object from a server of the object. In one embodiment, theprefetcher 904 generates an HTTP request for the non-cacheable object.In other embodiments, the prefetcher 704 generates a request to query orobtain the non-cacheable object using any type and form of applicationprotocol. For example, in one embodiment, the prefetcher 704 may use XMLlanguage to request non-cacheable object. In another embodiment, theprefetcher 704 generates a request for a non-cacheable object thatidentifies the user of the communication received at step 1172. In someembodiments, the prefetcher 704 generates a request for a non-cacheableobject that identifies another user, such as a user of the device. Inone embodiment, the prefetcher 704 generates a request that triggers theserver to dynamically generated the object. In one case, the requestidentifies a user for dynamically generating the object, such as for apersonalized web page. In some embodiments, the prefetcher 704 generatesthe request for the non-cacheable object with a priority for speculativeprefetching such as described in conjunction with FIGS. 7A-7D. In otherembodiments, the prefetcher 904 uses any type and form of QoS schedulingand/or priorities to schedule and transmit the generated request.

Further to step 1176, the device transmits the generated request 1160for the non-cacheable object to a server 106. In one embodiment, thedevice transmits the generated request to the server originating thepage. In another embodiment, the device transmits the generated requestto a second server. In some embodiments, the device transmits thegenerated request to a server farm. In other embodiments, the devicetransmits the generated request to a second appliance 200′. In oneembodiment, the device transmits the generated request in accordancewith any QoS priority assigned to or associated with the generatedrequest. In some embodiments, the device transmits the generated requestat a priority lower than non-prefetching requests. In other embodiments,the device transmits the generated request at a priority lower than thenon-prefetching requests received and processed by the device fromclients, users or applications on a client.

At step 1178, the device receives a response from the server having thenon-cacheable object or content thereof In one embodiment, the devicereceives a non-cacheable object generated for a specific user. Inanother embodiment, the device receives a non-cacheable object that isnot user dependent. In some embodiments, the device receives an objectdynamically generated by the server upon receipt of the request. Inother embodiments, the devices receives the non-cacheable object from acache of another device, such as an appliance, client or server.

At step 1180, the device stores the non-cacheable object to thecompression history 1138. In some embodiments, the device stores thenon-cacheable object to both the compression history 1138 and a cache.In one embodiment, the compression history 1138 and the cache 232 usethe same storage, or portion thereof In another embodiment, thecompression engine 238 uses the cache 232 or portion thereof as acompression history.

By preloading or prefetching the compression history with interceptednon-cacheable HTTP content, the compression engine can improve orincrease the compressibility of cacheable and non-cacheable content ofHTTP network traffic. Although the systems and methods above aregenerally described above in connection with pages, such as HTTP pages,the techniques of method 1100 or embodiments of the system of FIG. 11Amay be used with non-HTTP protocols.

With the multi-protocol and multi-session compression engine 238 storingnon-cacheable content to the compression history, the compression engine238 increases compressibility of content communicated over WAN and/orLAN links to reduce bandwidth, decrease latency, and improve responsetimes.

L. Systems and Methods for Using Non-Http Network File Transfer asCompression History for Http Based Traffic

Referring now to FIGS. 12A and 12B, systems and methods for usingnon-HTTP file transfer data in a compression history for compressingHTTP based traffic are depicted. With these techniques, non-HTTPaccessed traversing a compression device may use the data from suchnon-HTTP accessed to improve compressibility of HTTP traffic. Forexample, network file transfers can be used to preload a compressionhistory with a remote copy command, such as: rcp remote-file /dev/null.The remote file is copied across the network and then discarded, but thecompression engine stores the data in a compression history. If a useraccesses the file via an HTTP request, the compression engine uses thedata of the non-HTTP file transfer in the compression history. With thistechnique described in more detail below, non-HTTP or ad-hoc networkfile transfers are used to provide content distribution to compressiondevices for compressing HTTP network traffic.

Referring to FIG. 12A, an embodiment of a system for distributing orfetching non-HTTP content for a compression device to later compressHTTP content is depicted. In brief overview and as discussed above inconjunction with FIGS. 11A and 11B, a first device, such as a firstappliance 200, and a second device, such as client 102 or a secondappliance 200′ compress communications transmitted between the devicesusing data of a compression history 1138 that is shared synchronized. Auser, application or device initiates a non-HTTP network file transfer1250, such as a remote copy of one or more files from a first system toa second system or an ftp of a file from one device to another. Forexample, a user may execute a remote copy of one or more files from aserver 106 to the client 102. In another example, a system administratorof an appliance 200 may execute a remote copy of files from a server 106in order to preload the compression history 1138 of the appliance withfiles. This non-HTTP network file transfer may traverse one or morecompression devices, such as appliance 200 and the client 102 or asecond appliance 200′.

In further overview and as illustrated by the system embodiment at thetop of FIG. 13A, the first appliance 200 may intercept or otherwisereceive a non-HTTP file transfer 1250, such as a file transmitted by aserver 106 to a client 102. Although the appliance 200 identifies thecontent as non-HTTP, the appliance 200 stores the content to thecompression history 1138, which may also be the cache 232, or a portionthereof. The second appliance 200′ and/or client 102 may also interceptthe non-HTTP network file transfer 1250, and store content from the filetransfer to the compression history 1138′. The appliance 200, 200′and/or client 102 may intercept multiple non-HTTP file transfers andstore files or contents thereof to the respective compression histories1138, 1138′.

As illustrated by the system embodiment located in the lower half ofFIG. 12A, a user of the client 102 may request HTTP content from aserver 106. For example, the client may transmit an HTTP request to aserver for one or more files or objects. In response to the request, theserver transmits an HTTP response include the requested object or file.The first appliance 200 intercepts the HTTP content 1252 transmitted bythe server 106. A portion of data of the HTTP content 1252 comprises thesame data as a portion of the non-HTTP file transfer content stored inthe compression history 1138. In response to detecting a match betweenintercepted data and data in the compression history 1139, thecompression engine 238 generates a compressed version 1255 of HTTPcontent 1252 based on the non-HTTP content 1250 stored in thecompression history 1138. The first appliance 200 transmits thecompressed content 1255 to the client 102 or second appliance 200′. Theclient 102 or second appliance 200′ intercepts the compressed content1255, and the compression engine 238′ decompresses the compressedversion 1255 of the HTTP content 1252 using the non-HTTP file transfercontent 1250 stored in the second compression history 1138′.

Referring to FIG. 12B, an embodiment of steps of a method 1200 for usingnon-HTTP content for compressing HTTP traffic is depicted. In briefoverview, at step 1205, a user or application executes a non-HTTP filetransfer, such as a system administrator initiating a remote copy offiles from a server. At step 1210, a device, such as appliance 200 orclient 102, intercepts or otherwise receives network packets of thenon-HTTP network file transfer 1250. At step 1215, the device inresponse to identifying the non-HTTP network file transfer 1250 storescontent of the file transfer to a compression history. At step 1220, thedevice intercepts communications having HTTP content 1252, such an HTTPpage. At step 1225, the device determines a portion of the HTTP content1252 matches a portion of the non-HTTP file transfer 1252 stored in thecompression history 1138. At step 1230, the device compressed theportion of the HTTP content using the non-HTTP content stores in thecompression history 1138. At step 1235, the device communicates thecompressed content 1255 to the target receiver.

In further details, at step 1205, a user or application initiates orexecutes any type and form of network file transfer 1250. In someembodiments, the network file transfer uses any type and form ofapplication layer protocol. In one embodiment, the network file transferuses a non-HTTP protocol. In another embodiment, the network filetransfer uses a file transfer protocol, such any version and type ofFTP. In other embodiments, the network file transfer uses a NetworkBasic Input/Output System, NetBioS, to transfer a file. In oneembodiment, the network file transfers uses NetBEUI protocol to transfera file. In some embodiments, the network file transfer uses a ServerMessage Block (SMB) protocol. In yet another embodiment, the networkfile transfers uses the CIFS protocol for transferring one or morefiles. In still another embodiment, the network file transfer users aMessage Application Programming Interface (MAPI), such as via email, totransfer a file. In some embodiments, the network file transfer includesany protocol for communicating data to or via a printer, serial port,parallel port or other communication port or device.

In some embodiments, a user initiates a network file transfer via aremote copy command. In one embodiment, the network file transfer copiesone or more files from one system to a null device of a second device,referred as /dev/null on Linux or Unix operating system and alsosometimes referred to as a “bit bucket”. In some embodiments, thenetwork file transfer only copies the files to a system temporarily andnot for permanent storage. In yet another embodiment, a user initiates aprint or fax of data over the network, such as printing or faxing a fileor document from a network drive or a folder on a server 106. In someembodiments, a user emails one or more documents over a network, such asa LAN or WAN. In still other embodiments, a user via a file exploxer oruser interface copies one or more files from storage of a first deviceto storage of a second device via a network, such as by dragging anddropping file. In another embodiment, a user via file a transportprotocol program, application or user interface transfers one or morefiles between devices.

In some embodiments, the compression device, such as a the client 102 orappliance 200 initiates a network file transfer. For example, in oneembodiment, the network optimization engine 250 includes logic,functions or operations to execute a network transfer of files thattraverses the device in order to prefetch or populate the compressionhistory 1138 with data. In some embodiments, the network optimizationengine 250 responsive to detecting requests to and/or network trafficfrom a server, initiates a network transfer of files from the server toanother device. In yet another embodiment, the network optimizationengine 250 based on one or more policies of a policy engine 295 triggersexecution of a network file transfer to populate the compression history1138 with desired data. In one embodiment, a system administrator of theappliance 200 or compression device executes a network file transfer inorder to populate the compression history with specified data.

At step 1210, a device, such as client 102 or appliance 200, interceptsor otherwise receives the network file transfer 1250 communicatedbetween devices. In one embodiment, the device intercepts any type andform of communication from one device to another device identifying anon-HTTP file transfer such as a remote copy or otherwise having filecontent. In some embodiments, the device intercepts one or more networkpackets identifying a file transfer. In another embodiment, the deviceintercepts application payload of network packets having content of oneor more files. In other embodiments, the device intercepts one or morenetwork packets of network file transfer execute via a: remote copy,file transfer protocol (FTP), an email, a print or fax.

At step 1215, the device stores all or any portion of the content 1250to a compression history 1138. In one embodiment, the device identifiesthe non-HTTP network file transfer and in response to theidentification, stores the content, or portion thereof, to a compressionhistory 1138. In some embodiments, the device identifies a file in thecontent 1250 and stores the file to the compression history 1138. Inother embodiments, the device identifies the payload of a network packethas data of a file and stores the data to the compression history 1138.In another embodiment, the device determined that a network packetidentifies that subsequent network packets have content of a file, andstores the contents of the subsequent network packets to the compressionhistory 1138.

At step 1215′, in some embodiments, a second device, such as client 102or appliance 200′ also intercepts and stores the network file transfercontent intercepted and forwarded by the first device, such as appliance200. In these embodiments, a second compression engine 238′ and secondcompression history 1138′ stores the file transfer content, or anyportion thereof, in the compression history 1138′ to synchronize orotherwise maintain shared portions of data between compressing devices.In other embodiments, the first device, such as appliance 200, transmitsportions of the compression history 1138 to the second device, such asclient 102, for the second device to store in the compression history1138′.

In many embodiments, the device performs steps 1210 and 1215 multiplestimes for one or more network file transfers 1250, 1250′ In oneembodiment, the device intercepts and stores content from a network filetransfer via a remote copy. In some embodiments, the device interceptsand stores content from a network file transfer via a FTP. In anotherembodiment, the device intercepts and stores content from a network filetransfer via an email or via the MAPI protocol. In some embodiments, thedevice intercepts and stores network file transfer content for a firstuser. In other embodiments, the device intercepts and stores networkfile transfer content for a second user. In some embodiments, the deviceintercepts and stores network file transfer content of a first type ofprotocol, such as FTP. In other embodiments, the device intercepts andstores network file transfer content of a second type of protocol, suchas ICA or RDP.

At step 1220, the device, such as client 102 or appliance 200,intercepts or otherwise receives any type and form of HTTP communication1252 between devices. In one embodiment, the device intercepts an HTTPpage 1252 transmitted to a client from a server 106. In anotherembodiment, the device intercepts an HTTP page transmitted via any oneor more HTTP sessions. In another embodiment, the device intercepts apage transmitted to a browser of a user. In some embodiments, the deviceintercepts a first page of first session with a first user. In otherembodiments, the device intercepts a second page of second session witha second user. In one embodiment, the device intercepts HTTP content1252 having one or more objects. In another embodiment, the deviceintercepts HTTP content 1252 having one or more files. In yet anotherembodiment, the HTTP content 1252 may include non-cacheable content 1152as described above in conjunction with FIGS. 11A-11B. For example, theHTTP content 1252 in one embodiment may include a personalized versionof an HTTP page for a first user. In another embodiment, the HTTPcontent 1252 may include a personalized version of an HTTP page for asecond user.

At step 1225, the device determines at least a portion of the HTTPcontent 1252 matches content of the network file transfer 1250 stored toa compression history 1138. In some embodiments, the compression engine238 performs a match of data of the intercepted HTTP content 1252 to acompression history responsive to identifying the communication includesHTTP. In other embodiments, the compression engine 238 performs a matchof data of the intercepted HTTP content 1252 to a compression historyresponsive to identifying the content 1252 includes one or more files.In one embodiment, the compression engine 238 performs a match of dataof the intercepted HTTP content 1252 to a compression history responsiveto identifying the content 1252 includes a name or URL of a file of thenetwork file transfer 1250.

In one embodiment, the compression engine 238 determines the HTTPcontent 1252 was transmitted from the same server as the network filetransfer content stored to the compression history 1138. In otherembodiments, the compression engine 238 determines the HTTP content wastransmitted to the same device as the network file transfer contentstored in the compression history 1138. In one embodiment, thecompression engine 238 determines the HTTP content 1252 has the sameobjects or files as the network file transfer 1250. In yet anotherembodiment, the compression engine 238 matches a portion of theintercepted HTTP content 1252 to a portion of network file transfercontent 1250 stored in the compression history 1138. In a furtherembodiment, the compression engine 238 matches a portion of anon-cacheable object of an intercepted page to a portion of the networkfile transfer content stored in the compression history 1138. In oneembodiment, the compression engine 238 matches a portion of a cacheableobject of an intercepted page to a portion of the network file transfercontent stored in the compression history 1138.

In some embodiments, the compression engine 238 of the client orappliance determines that a sequence of one or more bytes of data in theHTTP content 252 matches data in the compression history 1138. Thecompression engine 238 may use any type of fingerprinting algorithm orscheme to determine a match. In some embodiments, the compression engine238 compares a fingerprint of a portion of data of the intercepted HTTPcontent 1250 to one or more fingerprints of portions of data in thecompression history 1138. In one embodiment, the compression engine 238compares a fingerprint of a portion of HTTP content 1252 of with afingerprint of a portion of network file transfer 1252 stored in thecompression history 1138. In one embodiment, the compression engine 238determines a match by matching a fingerprint of data of the HTTP content1252 to a fingerprint in the object index of the compression history1138. In another embodiment, the compression engine 238 determines amatch by searching for a sequence of data of the intercepted HTTPcontent 1252 to data in the compression history 1138.

At step 1230, the device compresses the portion of the HTTP contentusing the matching network file transfer content in the compressionhistory. In some embodiments, the compression engine 238 compresses allor any portion of the intercepted HTTP content 1250 to form a compressedrepresentation 1255 of the second page. In one embodiment, thecompression engine 238 compresses one or more portions of the HTTPcontent using one or more portions of the network file transfer contentstored in the compression history 1138. In some embodiments, thecompression engine 238 compresses a first file of the HTTP content usinga portion of one or more files of the network file transfer stored inthe compression history 1138. In yet another embodiment, the compressionengine 238 compresses a first object of the HTTP content using a portionof a first file and a portion of a second file of the network filetransfer stored in the compression history 1138. In other embodiments,the compression engine 238 compresses at least a portion of thepersonalized HTTP content 1252 using one or more portions of networkfile transfer stored in the compression history 1138. In still oneembodiment, the compression engine 238 compresses at least a portion ofa cacheable object of the HTTP content using a portion of network filetransfer content stored in the compression history 1138. In oneembodiment, the compression engine 238 compresses at least a portion ofa non-cacheable object of the HTTP content using a portion of thenetwork file transfer content stored in the compression history 1138.

At step 1235, the device communicates the compressed content 1255 to theintended receiver or target recipient. In some embodiments, a client 102communicates the compressed content to an appliance 200 or server 106.In another embodiment, the client 102 communicates the compressedcontent to an application on the client 102, such as a browser. In otherembodiments, the appliance 102 communicates the compressed content to aclient 102 or a second appliance 200′. The receiver, such as client 102,intercepts the compressed content 1255, and decompresses the compressedcontent 1255 using its copy of the data in the compression history 1138′corresponding to the compression used by the sending device.

M. Systems and Methods for Determining Whether to Prefetch/Prefresh anObject Based on Operational Condition of the Device or a Status of theConnection or Server

Referring now to FIGS. 13A and 13B, systems and methods for dynamicallydetermining whether to prefetch, freshen or pre-freshen an object basedon operational condition of the link to the originating server or theoperational status of the prefetching or prefreshening device and/orserver are depicted. In many embodiments, originating servers deliverobjects without an expiration date. Without expiration information, itmay be up to the caching device to decide how long these objects are toremain “fresh.” If an object is not fresh, the caching device checkswith the originating server to see if the object has changed. In somecases, it may not make sense to serve relatively stale data if theoriginating server is very close and verifying freshness takes verylittle time. In other cases, it may not make sense to serve relativelyfresh data if the link is so slow and congested that checking takes toolong or longer than desired.

The dynamic freshness heuristic technique described in conjunction withFIGS. 13A and 13B dynamically takes into account the operational andperformance conditions of the link (connection), caching device and/orserver to determine whether or not to check a status of the object or toobtain the object from the server. For example, if the condition of thelink is below a desired threshold, the caching device may check thefreshness of an object less frequently or rarely, and relatively staledata may be served instead. In another example, if the status of thelink or server indicates the link or server is no longer operational,the caching device may cease checking freshness of objects with thatserver until communication is re-established. In other example, if theperformance of the link and server may be such that the caching devicedetermines to check freshness of objects more frequently.

Referring now to FIG. 13A, a device such as an appliance 200 or client102 having a network optimization engine 250 is depicted. In briefoverview, the appliance 200 intercepts or otherwise receives pagesserved from an originating server 106 or transmitted via anotherappliance 200′ and forwards the page to the requester. The networkoptimization engine 250 may include an operation condition detector 1302for dynamically determining the operational and/or performance status,condition or characteristics of the connection to the server, the serverand/or the device (e.g. appliance 200 or client 102). Based on thedynamically detected operational conditions, the device determineswhether or not to obtain a status of an object in the cache or to obtainan update of the object from a server. In one embodiment, the networkoptimization engine 250 determines to prefetch an object via aprefetcher 704 responsive to the operation condition detector 1302. Inanother embodiment, the network optimization engine 250 determines toprefresh an object via a prefresher 904 responsive to the operationcondition detector 1302. In other embodiments, network optimizationengine 250 determines not to prefetch, freshen or prefresh an objectresponsive to the operation condition detector 1302.

As illustrated in FIG. 13A, the network optimization engine 250 mayinclude an operation condition detector 1302. The operation conditiondetector 1302 includes software, hardware or any combination of softwareand hardware. The operation condition detector 1302 may include anapplication, program, script, library, process, service, driver, task,thread or any type and form of executable instructions. The operationcondition detector 1302 includes or provides logic, business rules,functions or operations for detecting or determining an operationalcondition, status, characteristic and/or performance of one or more of:a network connection or link such as between the device and a server106, the caching device, such as appliance 200 or client 102, and one ormore servers 106. In some embodiments, the operation condition detector1302 includes the bandwidth detector 702, or the logic, functionalityand/or operations thereof, as described above in conjunction with FIGS.7A-7D.

In one embodiment, the operation condition detector 1302 detects ordetermines the operational condition of a network connection to a serverhaving one or more objects. In some embodiments, the operation conditiondetector 1302 determines a type and speed of the network connection. Forexample, the operation condition detector 1302 determines if the link orconnection is to a WAN or LAN network. In other embodiments, theoperation condition detector 1302 determines if there is a cooperatingor partner device, such as appliance 200′, in the path of the networkconnection between the device of the operation condition detector 1302and the server 106. In another embodiment, the operation conditiondetector 1302 determines utilization, availability or remaining capacityof bandwidth of the network connection between the network optimizationengine 240 and the server 106. In one embodiment, the operationcondition detector 1302 determines throughput rates, response times orperformance of network traffic delivery via the network connection. Insome embodiments, the operation condition detector 1302 determines alevel or rate of congestion, collisions, and/or dropped packets ofnetwork traffic via the network connection.

In yet another embodiment, the operation condition detector 1302determines whether or not a transport layer connection is active,established or operational. In one embodiment, the operation conditiondetector 1302 determines whether or not a transport layer connection isinactive, disconnected or not operational. In some embodiments, theoperation condition detector 1302 checks or monitors the condition of atransport layer connection between the device of the operation conditiondetector 1302 and the server 106. In other embodiments, the operationcondition detector 1302 checks or monitors the condition of a transportlayer connection between a client 102 and the server 106. In oneembodiment, the device of the operation condition detector 1302 proxies,transparently or otherwise, a transport layer connection between a firstdevice 102 and a second device 106.

In some embodiments, the operation condition detector 1302 determines adistance, absolute or relative, between the device of the operationcondition detector 1302 and a server 106. In other embodiments, theoperation condition detector 1302 determines a closeness between thenetwork optimization engine 250 and one or more servers 106. In oneembodiment, the operation condition detector 1302 determines thedistance or closeness via a measurement of one or more round trip times.In another embodiment, the operation condition detector 1302 determinesthe distance or closeness via time information returned by a ping orICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) echo request to a server. Insome embodiments, the operation condition detector 1302 determines thedistance or closeness of one or more servers via network configurationinformation.

In some embodiments, the operation condition detector 1302 detects ordetermines the operational condition or performance of a server, such asan originating server serving objects stored in a cache 232. In oneembodiment, the operation condition detector 1302 determines a server isrunning or operational, or otherwise not running or operational, via oneof a ping, ICMP echo request or trace route command. In otherembodiments, the operation condition detector 1302 determines a serveris running or operational, or otherwise not running or operational, byrequest a transport layer connection with the server. In some cases, theoperation condition detector 1302 sends an application layer protocolrequest, such an HTTP request, to the server and compares a receivedresponse to an expected response. In another embodiment, the operationcondition detector 1302 determines an operational condition of theserver by measuring or monitoring the number of concurrent connectionsto the server. In some embodiments, the operation condition detector1302 determines an operational condition of the server by measuring ormonitoring a rate of the number of connections established with theserver.

In yet other embodiments, the operation condition detector 1302determines a load of a server by any one or more of the following: 1)numbers and types of connections, 2) resource usage, such as CPU, diskand memory usage, 3) resource availability such as CPU, disk and memoryavailability, 4) number of requests outstanding, 5) number of requeststransmitted, 6) number of clients servicing, 7) response timeinformation, including average and historical response times, 8) errors,status, performance or bandwidth of a connection, 9) number of sessions,and states or status thereof, and 10) a weight assigned to the server.In one embodiment, the server 106 transmits information, including anyof the above items, regarding its operations, status, load orperformance to the network optimization engine 250 and/or the operationcondition detector 1302. In some embodiments, the operation conditiondetector 1302 receives information on the operational condition orperformance of a server from another device, such as an appliance 200 orappliance 205.

In some embodiments, the operation condition detector 1302 detects ordetermines the operational condition or performance of the cachingdevice or the device executing the operation condition detector 1302. Inone embodiment, the device is a WAN optimization appliance 200. Inanother embodiment, the device is a proxying device or proxying networkappliance. In other embodiments, the device is a network accelerationdevice for LAN or WAN. In some embodiments, the device is aload-balancer and/or content-switching device. In any of theseembodiments, the operational condition detector 1302 detects ordetermines the operational condition or performance of the devicerelative to the functionality and operations for which the device wasdesigned and constructed. In one embodiment, the operational conditiondetector 1302 determines a performance throughput or rate of servicingnetwork traffic traversing the device. In some embodiments, theoperational condition detector 1302 detects or determines any one ormore of the following: 1) numbers and types of connections, 2) resourceusage, such as CPU, disk and memory usage, 3) resource availability,such as CPU, disk and memory availability, 4) number of requestsoutstanding, 5) number of requests transmitted, 6) number of clientsservicing, 7) response time information, including average andhistorical response times, 8) errors, status, performance or bandwidthof a connection, and 9) number of sessions, and states or statusthereof.

In some embodiments, the operation condition detector 1302 may use oneor more monitoring agents 1303. The monitoring agent 1303 may includesoftware, hardware or a combination of software and hardware. Themonitoring agent 1303 may be an application, program, script, library,process, service, driver, task, thread or any type and form ofexecutable instructions. In one embodiment, the monitoring agent 1303monitors an operational condition of a server or a network service of aserver 106, such as a web or HTTP service. In some embodiments, themonitoring agent 1303 monitors an operation condition of a networkconnection. In other embodiments, the monitoring agent 1303 monitors thedevice of the operation condition detector 1302. In one embodiment, themonitoring agent 1303 determines operational conditions of the monitoredresource, such as a server or connection, on a predetermined frequency,such as every 1 sec, or 1 msec, or at any frequency between 1 msec and 1sec.

In some embodiments, the operation condition detector 1302 uses one ormore predetermined thresholds 1304 to determine whether or not to obtaina status of an object or obtain the object from a server based on theoperational condition or performance of the network connection, serveror device. A predetermined threshold 1303 may include any type and formof value or values, such as ranges. The predetermined threshold 1303 mayidentify or indicate a desired, suitable or acceptable level for theresource, condition or characteristic under detection or monitoring bythe operation condition detector 1302. In one embodiment, each of theone or more predetermined thresholds 1304 may be weighted using any typeand form of weighting scheme. In some embodiments, a user of the device,such an administrator of the appliance 200, may select or establish thepredetermined threshold values and/or corresponding weights.

In some embodiments, the operation condition detector 1302 determines ifthe operational condition of a connection, server and/or the device iswithin or below one or more of the predetermined thresholds 1304. Basedon this determination, the operation condition detector 1302 indicatesor communicates to the prefetcher 704 and/or prefresher 904 that theoperational conditions are as such that the prefetcher 704 and/orprefresher 904 should perform any of the fetching, prefetching,freshening and/or prefreshening techniques described herein. In oneembodiment, the prefetcher 704 and/or prefresher generates a request toobtain a status of one or more objects from a server responsive to asignal or communication from the operation condition detector 1302. Inanother embodiment, the prefetcher 704 and/or prefresher 904 generates arequest to obtain one or more objects from a server responsive to asignal or communication from the operation condition detector 1302. Inyet another embodiment, the prefetcher 704 and/or prefresher 904generates a request for a conditional get of one or more objects from aserver responsive to a signal or communication from the operationcondition detector 1302.

In other embodiments, the operation condition detector 1302 determinesif the operational condition of a connection, server and/or the deviceexceeds or is about to exceed one or more of the predeterminedthresholds 1304. In some of these embodiments, the operation conditiondetector 1302 indicates or communicates to the prefetcher 704 and/orprefresher 904 to not perform any of fetching, prefetching, fresheningand/or prefreshening of objects. In another of these embodiments, theoperation condition detector 1302 does not communicate a signal orotherwise indicate to the prefetcher 704 and/or prefresher 904 toperform any of fetching, prefetching, freshening and/or prefreshening ofobjects.

Referring now to FIG. 13B, an embodiment of steps of a method 1300 forperforming heuristic based and dynamically determining whether toprefetch, freshen or pre-freshen an object based on operationalcondition of the link to the originating server or the operationalstatus of the prefetching or prefreshening device and/or server isdepicted. In brief overview, at step 1305, intercepting by a device,such as a client 102 or appliance 200, an object transmitted from aserver via a network connection, such as a transport layer connection.For example, the device may intercept an HTTP response to a user requestfor an object. At step 1305, the device stores or updates the object inthe cache 232. At step 1310, the device detects whether or not anoperational condition of the connection or server is within apredetermined threshold. As step 1315, in response to the detection, thedevice determines whether or not to transmit a request to the server toobtain a status or an updated copy of the object in the cache. At step1317, if the detected operational condition or conditions exceeds one ormore predetermined thresholds, the device does not generate or transmita request to obtain information about the object from the server. Atstep 1320, if the detected operational condition or conditions is withina predetermined threshold or thresholds, the device generates a requestfor the status or updated copy of the object and transmits the generatedrequest to the server. At step 1325, the device updates the objectstored in the cache based on the response received from the server.

In further details, at step 1305, the device intercepts or otherwisereceives any type and form of communication from one device to anotherdevice identifying or comprising an object, such as a page transmittedfrom a server to a client. In one embodiment, the device intercepts aresponse from a server to a client's request for an object. In someembodiments, the server 106 transmits one or more network packets havingan application protocol layer payload providing or identifying anobject. For example, in one embodiment, the device intercepts a web orHTTP page transmitted by a server 106 to a client 102 and the pageincludes a uniform resource locator (URL) or hyperlink identifying anobject. In some embodiments, the appliance 200 intercepts a pageidentified by a URL and the page identifies one or more objects. In someembodiments, the device identifies the object from the interceptedcommunication and obtains the object from the server. At step 1205, thedevice forwards or transmits the intercepted communication to therequester, such as client 102, or an application or user of the client102. The device also stores the object, or a copy or portion thereof, tothe cache 232.

At step 1310, the device detects via the operation condition detector1302 whether or not an operational condition of the connection or serveris within one or more predetermined thresholds. In one embodiment, thedevice detects whether or not an operational condition of the deviceitself is within a predetermined threshold As discussed above, theoperation condition detector 1302 may detect or monitor any type andform of operational or performance condition, status, or characteristicof a network connection, server or the device. In some embodiments, theoperation condition detector 1302 may use any combination ofpredetermined thresholds, weighted or not weighted, to determine if theoperational condition of a network connection, server and/or device iswithin a desired threshold.

As step 1315, in response to the detection, the device determineswhether or not to transmit a request to the server to obtain a status oran updated copy of the object in the cache. In some embodiments, thenetwork optimization engine 250 makes this determination based on whichoperational conditions are within predetermined thresholds. In otherembodiments, the network optimization engine 250 makes thisdetermination based on which operations conditional exceed predeterminedthresholds. In another embodiment, the network optimization engine 250determines whether or not to obtain a status or an updated copy of theobject based on one or more currently intercepted pages. In oneembodiment, network optimization engine 250 determines whether or not toobtain a status or an updated copy of the object based on the size ofthe object. In other embodiments, the network optimization engine 250determines whether or not to obtain a status or an updated copy of theobject based on expiration period of the object. In some embodiments,the network optimization engine 250 determines whether or not to obtaina status or an updated copy of the object based on temporal information,such as the last request for the object. In yet another embodiment, thenetwork optimization engine 250 determines whether or not to obtain astatus or an updated copy of the object based on the detectedoperational conditions in combination with user demand, size, expirationperiod, or other temporal information of the object stored in the cache232. In some embodiments, the network optimization engine 250 makes thisdetermination based on one or more policies of a policy engine 295.

In one embodiment, the device and/or operation condition detector 1302determines operational condition(s) exceeds one or more predeterminedthreshold 1303 or that the device should otherwise should not obtain astatus or copy of the object for the cache 232. In these embodiments, atstep 1317, in response to the detection, the device does not generate ortransmit a request to obtain information about the object from theserver.

In other embodiments, the device and/or operation condition detector1302 determines operational condition(s) exceeds one or morepredetermined threshold 1303 or that the device should otherwise obtaina status or copy of the object for the cache. In these embodiments, thedevice, at step 1320, generates a request for a status or copy of theobject and transmit the request to a server. In one embodiment, theprefetcher 704 generates a request for the status or an updated copy ofthe object responsive to the operation condition detector 1302. In otherembodiments, the prefresher 904 generates a request for the status or anupdated copy of the object responsive to the operation conditiondetector 1302. In yet another embodiment, the network optimizationengine 250 generates a request to obtain a status or copy of the objectresponsive to the operation condition detector 1302. In one embodiment,the network optimization engine 250 generates a conditional request forthe object. In some embodiments, any of the prefetching and/orprefreshening techniques described herein, such as in conjunction withFIGS. 7A-7D, 8A-8B, 9A-9B and 10A-10B may be triggered responsive to thedetection of operational conditions by the operation condition detector1302.

At step 1325, the device or and/or network optimization engine 250 mayupdate the object stored in the cache based on the response receivedfrom the server. n one embodiment, the network optimization engine 250stores an updated version of the object in the cache 232. In anotherembodiment, the network optimization engine 250 updates or stores thechanges to portions of the object to the cache 232. In some embodiments,the network optimization engine 250 updates object information of thecached object. For example, the network optimization engine 250 updatesexpiration or validation information of the object in the cache 232. Inanother embodiment, the network optimization engine 250 updates objectheader information in the cache 232. In some embodiments, the networkoptimization engine 250 determines the object in the cache is fresh orvalid.

In some embodiments of method 1300, steps 1305 and/or 1310 and/or 1315are performed a plurality of times to dynamically trigger or not triggerfetching, pre-fetching, freshening or pre-freshening of an object basedon the operational condition of a network connection, server or thedevice. As conditions change over time, in one point in time, thenetwork optimization engine 250 may generate and transmit a request forthe object responsive to operational conditions, while in another pointin time or a next point in time, the network optimization engine 250 maynot generate and transmit a request for a status or copy of the objectresponsive to operational conditions. In some embodiments, the networkoptimization engine 250 may stop performing step 1320 until one or moreoperational conditions fall below one or more predetermined thresholds,for example, upon a server status indicating the server's load is at adesired level.

N. Systems and Methods for Determining Expiration of a Cached ObjectResponsive to Refresh Requests for the Object

Referring now to FIGS. 14A, 14B and 14C, systems and methods fordetermining or updating the expiration of a cached object responsive torefresh requests for the object are depicted. In some cases, a cachingdevice may serve a cached object or page too long, and a user may needto request a refresh of the page via a refresh button to reload thecurrent page. With the refresh button technique described below, thecaching device is responsive to the indicated use of the refresh buttonand identifies the requested URL as a page that should expire fasterthan the heuristics or expiration information would otherwise indicate.This technique recognizes that each refresh request is a vote by a userfor greater freshness of a cached object.

Referring to FIG. 14A, an embodiment of an appliance for detectingrefresh request(s) and updating expiration information of objects in thecache responsive to the request(s) is depicted. In this embodiment, thenetwork optimization engine 250 is deployed on an appliance. In briefoverview, a client 102 executes a browser displaying one or more pagesserved from a server 106. The page may include or identify one or moreobjects. The client 102 or browser may have a refresh button, script orprogram 1450 selected by the user to refresh a page of the browser. Inresponse to the refresh selection, the client 102 or browser transmits arequest to refresh or reload the page to a server 106. An appliance 200having a refresh detector 1402 intercepts the communication transmittedby the client 102 and identifies the communication as requesting arefresh or reload of the page. The refresh detector 1402 tracks a numberof requests to refresh or reload a page or fetch an object. In responseto the refresh request or a number of refresh requests reaching apredetermined threshold, the refresh detector updates the cache 232 todecrease the expiration time or remaining freshness of the cachedobject.

Referring to FIG. 14B, another embodiment of a system for detectingrefresh request(s) and updating expiration information of objects in thecache responsive to the request(s) is depicted. In this embodiment, thenetwork optimization engine 250 is deployed on a client 102. In briefoverview, a client 102 executes a browser displaying one or more pagesserved from a server 106. The page may include or identify one or moreobjects. The client 102 or browser may have a refresh button, script orprogram 1450 selected by the user to refresh a page of the browser. Inresponse to the refresh selection, the client 102 or browser transmits arequest to refresh or reload the page to a server 106. In oneembodiment, the refresh detector 1402 on the client intercepts thecommunication transmitted by the client 102 and identifies thecommunication as requesting a refresh or reload of the page. In anotherembodiment, the refresh detector 1402 on the client intercepts an eventof the selection of the refresh button. The refresh detector 1402 tracksa number of requests to refresh or reload a page or fetch an object. Inresponse to the refresh request or a number of refresh requests reachinga predetermined threshold, the refresh detector updates the cache 232 onthe client to decrease the expiration time or remaining freshness of thecached object.

In yet another embodiment of the system and referring to FIG. 14C, therefresh detector may be distributed or otherwise deployed on a firstdevice, such as the client 102, and a second device, such as the cachingdevice or appliance 200. In brief overview, a client 102 executes abrowser displaying one or more pages including or identifying one ormore objects. The client 102 or browser may have a refresh button,script or program 1450 selected by the user to refresh a page of thebrowser. In response to the refresh selection, the client 102 or browsertransmits a request to refresh or reload the page to a server 106. Inone embodiment, the refresh detector 1402 on the client intercepts therefresh selection or the communication transmitted by the client 102 andidentifies a user or the client has requested a refresh or reload of thepage. The refresh detector 1402 may communicate or interface with therefresh detector 1402′ on the appliance 200 to inform this cachingdevice of the refresh request event. In response to the refresh requestor a number of refresh requests reaching a predetermined threshold, therefresh detector 1402′ updates the cache 232 on the appliance 200 todecrease the expiration time or remaining freshness of the cachedobject.

In view of FIGS. 14A, 14B and/or 14C, the client 102 may execute oroperate any type and form of browser. In one embodiment, the browser isany version of Internet Explorer manufactured by Microsoft Corporationof Redmond, Wash. In another embodiment, the browser is any version ofthe Netscape browser manufactured by the Netscape CommunicationsCorporation. In other embodiments, the browser is any version of theopen source browser referred to as Firefox and provided by MozillaFoundation of California and found at www.mozilla.com. In yet anotherembodiment, the browser is any version of the browser referred to asOpera manufactured by Opera Software ASA of Oslo, Norway. In someembodiments, the client 102 executes or included any type and form ofapplication or program for displaying web pages, web content or HTTPcontent. In one embodiment, the client 102 may execute a remote displayclient, such as an ICA client manufactured by Citrix Systems, Inc or aRemote Desktop Protocol manufactured by the Microsoft Corporation. Inthese embodiments, a server 106 may execute the browser on behalf of theclient and display output from the browser on the client 102 via aremote display protocol, such as ICA or RSDP, to the remote displayclient. The client 102 via the browser, an applicant or remote desktopclient may display one or more pages, such as any web or HTTP page orcontent, served from a server 106. The page or pages may include or moreobjects. The page or pages may identify one or more objects. Forexample, a page may identify an object via a URL or hyperlink.

The client 102 may include any type and form of execution method 1450 torefresh or reload a page, or object thereof, provided via the browser,application or remote desktop client. In one embodiment, the browser orapplication includes a refresh user interface element 1450, such as arefresh button. Upon selection of the refresh button 1450 by a user oranother application, the browser or application generates and transmitsa request 1451 to the server 106 to refresh or reload the content orobjects of one or more pages. In some embodiments, the refresh executionmethod 1450 includes any type and form of selectable user interfaceelement of a browser or application. In yet another embodiment, therefresh user interface element 1450 includes any type and form of scriptor scripting language, such as Javascript or an ActiveX control. Inother embodiments, the refresh execution method 1450 includes any typeand form of program, service, process, thread or task for requesting arefresh or reload of a page, such as a process executing in thebackground of the operating system. In one embodiment, the refreshexecution method 1450 includes executable instructions to refresh orreload a page, or object thereof, from a cache 232.

A user, a plurality of users or any application, program, process,service, thread or task on the client 102 may execute, initiate ortrigger the refresh execution method 1450. The request generated byselection of the refresh 1450 may include any type and form ofapplication protocol layer request. In some embodiments, the refreshuser interface element 1450 generates and transmits an HTTP request 1451to refresh one or more HTTP pages served by the server 106. In otherembodiments, the refresh element 1450 generates and executes a functioncall or application programming interface (API). In one embodiment, thefunction or API executes on the client 102. In another embodiment, thefunction or API executes on the server 106.

In some embodiments, the server 106 generates and/or transmits a request1452 to the client 102 to refresh a page. The server 106 may transmits arefresh request to the client 102 via any type and form of applicationlayer protocol. In one embodiment, the server 106 transmits an HTTPrefresh header 1452 to the browser of the client 102. In someembodiments, the server 106 serves the HTTP refresh header 1452 withpages or content served by the server 106 to the client 102. In otherembodiments, the server 106 transmits a script or set of one or moreexecutable instructions for the browser or application of the client 102to execute to reload the page or request a refresh. In some embodiments,the script or executable instructions includes a function or API call toreload or refresh a page. In other embodiments, the script or executableinstructions updates the page via a cache 232.

In some embodiments, the network optimization engine 250 as describedherein, or any portion thereof, such as the protocol accelerator 234,may include a refresh detector 1402. In other embodiments, the cache orcache manager 232 includes the refresh detector 1402. The refreshdetector 1402 may include software, hardware or any combination ofsoftware and hardware. The refresh detector 1402 may include anapplication, program, script, library, process, service, driver, task,thread or any type and form of executable instructions. In oneembodiment, the refresh detector 1402 includes or provides logic,business rules, functions or operations for detecting a selection of arefresh user interface element 1450 or determining the refresh 1450 wasselected. For example, a refresh detector 1402 on the client 102 maydetect an event, call back or function was called via selection of arefresh button 1450. In some embodiments, the refresh detector 1402includes or provides logic, business rules, functions or operations forintercepting and detecting a communication requesting a refresh orreload of a page. For example, a refresh detector 1402 on an appliance200 may intercept application layer traffic via a transport protocolconnection and determine or identify the application layer payloadincludes a refresh request.

In the embodiment of a refresh detector 1402 on a client 102, therefresh detector 1402 may include any type and form of executableinstructions to detect a selection of a refresh or reload button 1450 ofa browser or application. In one embodiment, the refresh detector 1402includes an event handler or callback function for a selection event ofa user interface element. In another embodiment, the refresh detector1402 includes a hooking or filtering mechanism to capture any eventrelated to the refresh user interface element 1450. In some embodiments,the refresh detector 1402 includes executable instructions in thescript, program or executable instructions of the refresh user interfaceelement 1450 to perform any of the operations described herein. Inanother embodiment, the refresh detector 1402 includes an interceptor305 of a client agent 302 as described in FIG. 3. In these embodiments,the refresh detector 1402 intercepts at any point or layer in a networkstack of the client 102 a communication requesting a refresh or reloadof a page.

In an embodiment of a refresh detector 1402 on the appliance 200 orintermediary caching device, the refresh detector 1402 includes any typeand form of executable instructions to intercept and/or determine fromnetwork traffic traversing the appliance 200 that a refresh of a page orobject has been requested. In one embodiment, the refresh detector 1402intercepts and/or determines a refresh request of communications from aclient 102 to a server 106. In another embodiment, the refresh detector1402 intercepts and/or determines a refresh request of communicationsfrom a server 106 to a client 102. In other embodiments, the refreshdetector 1402 intercepts and/or determines a refresh request fromcommunications transmitted between a server 106 and a client 102. Insome embodiments, the refresh detector 1402 identifies in the payload ofone or more intercepted network packets that the payload includes arequest to refresh a page or object thereof, such as URL or hyperlink.In one embodiment, the refresh detector 1402 determines a refreshrequest from any type and form of application layer protocol. In otherembodiments, the refresh detector 1402 identifies or determines fromheader information of an HTTP communication that the communicationincludes a refresh or reload request. In yet another embodiment, therefresh detector 1402 applies a filter to intercepted network packets todetermine if one or more network packets include or identify a refreshrequest, such as request 1451 or 1452.

As illustrated in FIG. 14A, the refresh detector 1402 may include arequest tracker 1403. The request tracker 1403 may include any type andform of tracking mechanism or scheme for tracking a number of refresh orreload requests, such as requests 1451 and 152. The request tracker 1403may include a data structure, object, queue, list file or database totrack and maintain a number of refresh requests. The request tracker1403 may include any type and form of executable instructions forrecording, tracking, updating or managing a number of refresh requests.In one embodiment, the request tracker 1403 tracks a number of refreshrequests from a client 102. In some embodiments, the request tracker1403 tracks a number of refresh requests from a browser or application.In other embodiments, the request tracker 1403 tracks a number ofrefresh requests from a user. In another embodiment, the request tracker1403 tracks a number of refresh requests from a server 106. In someembodiments, the request tracker 1403 tracks a number of refreshrequests from a group of users, clients, servers, or browsers, such as agroup of users or client at a branch office. The request tracker 1403may use any type and form of counter and counting schemes for tracking anumber of refresh requests. The request tracker 1403 may track and counta number of refresh requests on a per page basis or per object basis,such as for each URL, hyperlink or object identifier.

In one embodiment, the request tracker 1403 tracks a number of refreshrequests over any time period. In some embodiments, the request tracker1403 tracks a number of refresh requests during an application layersession, such as between a browser and a server. In other embodiments,the request tracker 1403 tracks a number of refresh requests during atransport layer connection, such as between a client and a server. Inone embodiment, the request tracker 1403 tracks a number of refreshrequests between a start and termination of a session or a connection.In yet another embodiment, the request tracker 1403 tracks a number ofrefresh requests until a count of a number of requests for a page orobject has reached a predetermined threshold. In some embodiments, therequest tracker 1402 resets a counter for a number of request for pagebased on any temporal data or terminations of a session or a counter.

In some embodiments, the request detector 1402 interfaces with or is incommunication with the cache manager 232. In one embodiment, the requestdetector 1402 is integrated or incorporated in the cache manager 232.Responsive to tracking refresh requests, the request detector 1402request the cache manager 232 to update or change information of acached object. In some embodiments, the request detector 1402 changesthe expiration period or freshness information for a cached object. Inother embodiments, the request detector 1402 establishes an expirationperiod for a cached object based on tracked refresh request information.In another embodiment, the request detector 1402 marks a cached objectas invalid, expired or otherwise not fresh or not validated responsiveto tracked refresh request information. In still other embodiments, therequest detector 1402 may trigger or execute any of the prefetching orprefreshening techniques described herein, such as via FIGS. 7A-7D,8A-8B, 9A-9B and 10A-10B, responsive to tracked refresh requestinformation.

Referring now to FIG. 14D, an embodiment of a method 1400 fordetermining or updating the expiration of a cached object responsive torefresh requests for the object is depicted. In brief overview, at step1405, a client 102 generates a request to refresh or reload a pageidentifying one or more objects stores in a cache 232. The object storedin the cache 232 has a first expiration period. At step 1410, a device,such as an appliance 200 or client, detects one or more requests torefresh the page. At step 1415, the device determines responsive to thedetection of the one or more refresh requests to establish a secondexpiration period for the object in the cache 232. For example, based onuser demand for a cached object detected by the refresh requests, acaching device may shorten the expiration period of the cached object toincrease the frequency of freshening the object in the cache. In someembodiments, at step 1415′, the caching device adjusts the expirationperiod of the cached object responsive to the number of refreshrequests, frequency of the refresh requests, and/or number of users,clients, servers or browsers sending and/or receiving refresh requestsassociated with the cached object.

In further detail, at step 1405, a client, browser or application maygenerate via any type and form of refresh execution method 1450 arefresh request 1451. In some embodiments, a user generates the refreshor reload request 1451 by selecting a refresh user interface element1451. In other embodiments, a program, script or executable instructionsgenerates the refresh or reload request 1451 on a predeterminedfrequency or in response to any user interaction with the client 102 orbrowser. In yet another embodiment, a server 106 transmits a refreshrequest 1452 to the client 102.

At step 1410, a device, such as an appliance 200 or client, detects oneor more requests to refresh the page. In one embodiment, a refreshdetector 1402 on the client 102 detects a selection of a user interfaceelement of a browser or application on the client. In anotherembodiment, a refresh detector 1402 on the client 102 detects acommunication from the client to a server to refresh a page viainterception at any point or layer in the network stack of the client102. In other embodiments, a refresh detector 1402 on an appliance 200detects a refresh request via interception and inspection of networkpackets traversing the appliance 200. In one embodiment, the refreshdetector 1402 of the appliance 200 determines a client's networkcommunication to a server includes a refresh request 1451. In anotherembodiment, the refresh detector 1402 of the appliance 200 determines aservers' network communication to a client includes a refresh request1452. In still another embodiment, a refresh detector 1402 of the client102 detects a selection of a refresh user interface element 1450 orcommunication of a refresh request 1451, and transits a communication ora message to refresh detector 1402′ of the appliance 200. In theseembodiments, the first refresh detector 1402 informs the second refreshdetector 1402′ of the detection of the refresh request.

At step 1410, the refresh detector 1402 tracks a number of detectedrefresh requests. In some embodiments, the refresh detector 1402 tracksa number of detected refresh requests for each page, object, URL orhyperlink. In one embodiment, the refresh detector 1402 tracks a numberof detected refresh requests for a user. In other embodiments, therefresh detector 1402 tracks a number of detected refresh requests on aclient 102, browser or application basis. In yet another embodiment, therefresh detector 1402 tracks a number of detected refresh requests on aserver basis. In still other embodiments, the refresh detector 1402tracks a number of detected refresh requests on a basis of a group ofusers, clients, browsers, applications, or servers. In some embodiments,the refresh detector 1402 tracks a number of detected refresh requestsover any time period, such as for a predetermined time period, or duringany session or connection.

At step 1415, the device determines responsive to the detection of theone or more refresh requests to establish a second expiration period orotherwise change the expiration period for the object in the cache 232.In one embodiment, the refresh detector 1402 and/or cache manager 232decreases the expiration period of a cached object by a predeterminedamount for each detected refresh request for the object. In anotherembodiment, the refresh detector 1402 and/or cache manager 232 decreasesthe expiration period of a cached object by a predetermined amount upondetecting a predetermined number of refresh requests for the object. Inother embodiments, the refresh detector 1402 and/or cache manager 232decreases an expiration period of a cached object by an amountdetermined or computed based on a number of refresh requests and/or thefrequency of refresh requests for the object.

In some embodiments, the refresh detector 1402 and/or cache manager 232increases the expiration period of a cached object, such as a previouslydecreased expiration period, based on a change in the number orfrequency of refresh requests for the object. For example, if therefresh detector 1403 does not detect a refresh request for an objectwithin a predetermined time, the refresh detector 1402 and/or cachemanager 232 may increase the expiration period of the cached object orreset to the expiration period to an initial or default value. In otherembodiments, the refresh detector 1402 and/or cache manager 232increases the expiration period of a cached object by a predeterminedfactor based on a decrease in the number or frequency of refreshrequests for the object.

In one embodiment, the refresh detector 1402 and/or cache manager 232establishes an expiration period for the cached object responsive todetecting refresh requests for the object. In some embodiments, thecached object may not have an expiration period. In these embodiments,the refresh detector 1402 and/or cache manager 232 establishes anexpiration period for the object based on demand determines via thedetected refresh requests for the object. In another embodiment, therefresh detector 1402 stops detecting refresh requests for an objectupon a number of requests exceeding a predetermined threshold or theexpiration period of the cached object reaching a predeterminedthreshold. In still other embodiments, the refresh detector 1402 and/orcache manager 232 may update any information of the object in the cache232, such as validation or freshness information responsive to thedetection of refresh requests. For example, the refresh detector 1402and/or cache manager 232 may mark an otherwise fresh object as invalidor expired responsive to the detection of a refresh request.

In some embodiments, at step 1415′ the refresh detector 1402 continuallydetects refresh requests for one or more objects, the refresh detector1402 and/or cache manager 232 may adjust—increase and/or decrease—theexpiration period for the object. The refresh detector 1402 and/or cachemanager 232 may update object information, such as expiration orfreshness, based on any of the following: 1) number of refresh requests,2) frequency of refresh requests, 3) time from a last or previousrefresh request, 4) time to a first refresh request, 5) number of users,client, browsers or applications requesting a refresh, 6) number ofservers responding to refresh requests, 7) number of server refreshrequests, 8) size of the object in the cache, 9) last time object orobject information was updated, 10) temporal information related toduration of session or connection, 11) establishment or disconnection ofa session or a connection.

With the systems and methods described above, a caching device canupdate cached objects responsive to user demand as detected via refreshrequests.

O. Systems and Methods for Domain Name Resolution Interception Cachingand Prefeshening/Prefetching Techniques for Cached DNS Information.

Referring now to FIGS. 15A-15C, systems and methods are depicted fortechniques of performing domain name resolution for interception cachingand applying any of the prefreshening and/or prefetching techniquesdescribed herein to cached domain name server information. In someembodiments, a caching device may be on a different part of a networkthan the client 102. In these embodiments, the cache may not be able toresolve IP names in the same way that the user would. In one embodiment,this may cause additional trouble when the client is connected to anetwork via a virtual private network, such as an SSL VPN. The cachingdevice may encounter a URL or link that does not have a domain name onthe virtual private network. In one case, if the user's browser has aproxy configures, the client sends HTTP requests to the proxy withoutturning addresses of URLS into IP addresses via domain name resolution.In other cases, if the user's browser does not know there is a proxy,for example, in case of transparent intercept caching, the client triesto resolve the URL addressed into IP addresses itself. The user browserresolves the URL address first so that it can open a connection to theserver serving the URL.

Using the techniques described herein, the caching device obtains the IPdestination address of packets intercepted from clients. The clients mayhave resolved the addresses of the URLs and are now requestingconnections to the resolved IP addresses. In some embodiments, theinterception cache does not perform domain name resolution for the URLbut instead uses the destination IP of the intercepted network packet asthe resolved IP address of the URL. By using this technique, the cachingdevice avoids domain name resolution problems, such as those caused viaa VPN, simplifies configuration and increases transparency of theintercepting cache. Furthermore, the caching device may maintain andupdate cached DNS information using any of the prefetching and/orprefreshening techniques described herein.

Referring now to FIG. 12A, an embodiment of a system for using thedestination IP address of intercepted network packets associated withthe URL or link as the resolved domain name address is depicted. Inbrief overview, a client 102 may have a browser or application forreceiving and displaying content transmitted via a network, such as aweb page served by a server 106. In some cases, the client 102 maycommunicate with the server via a VPN established by appliance 200′ oran appliance 205. The page may have or more URLs or hyperlinks. Theclient 102 and/or browser may resolve one or more URLs of the page via aDomain Name Server (DNS) such as server 106N. The client 102 and/orbrowser obtains the content or object identified via the URL byrequesting a connection to a server identified by the IP addressresolved by the client via DNS. As depicted in FIG. 12A, the client 102transmits one or more packets 1575 for the URL to a destination IPaddress of the server 106. An intercepting cache, such as appliance 200,intercepts the request from the client 102. The appliance 200 identifiesthe destination IP address and the URL from the packet. Instead ofresolving the IP address of the domain name of the URL, the appliance200 uses the destination IP address of the packet 1575 as the DNSresolved IP address for the URL. The appliance 200 stores thisinformation 1580 in the cache 232. For subsequent requests for the URLor for domain resolution of the URL, the appliance 200 may use thecached information 1580 as the resolved IP address of the URL.

In some embodiments, the application layer of the network packet 1575identifies the URL. In other embodiments, the application layer of thenetwork packet 1575 identifies a domain name to be resolved to an IPaddress, such as a domain name of the URL. In one embodiment, the client102 or browser requests a URL, or content thereof, via any type and formof application layer protocol, such as HTTP. In another embodiment, thenetwork or IP layer of the network packet 1575 identifies thedestination IP address of the request. In yet another embodiment, thetransport layer of the network packet 1575 identifies the destination IPaddress of the request. For example, in one embodiment, a client 102 mayrequest to open a transport layer connection, such as a TCP connection,to a server. The transport layer connection request identifies theserver as the destination IP address. In some embodiments, thedestination IP address of the network packet 1575 comprises an IPaddress resolved by the requester for the URL or domain name of the URL.

Referring now to FIG. 15B, an embodiment of a system for serving andupdating cached DNS information of URLs is depicted. In brief overview,an intercepting cache, such as appliance 200 stores cached information580 associating a URL with a resolved IP address of the URL. In oneembodiment, the IP address for the URL in the cached information 580includes the IP address intercepted from the network packet 1575 asdiscussed in conjunction with FIG. 15A. In one case, a client 102 havinga browser or application may request DNS resolution of a URL. In oneembodiment, the client 102 requests DNS resolution of the URL from theappliance 200. In another embodiment, the client 102 requests DNSresolution from a server 106 and the request traverses appliance 200.The appliance 200 may respond to the request by serving the IP addressassociated with the URL from the cached information 1580. Furthermore,the appliance 200 in response to the request may freshen the IP addressof the URL in cached information 1580 by generating and transmitting arequest for domain name resolution of the URL. In another embodiment,the appliance 200 in response to the request may prefetch the URL fromthe server and store content from the URL in the cache 232. In someembodiments, the appliance 200 in response to the request may prefeshencached URL content by requesting a status and/or update of the contentfrom a server.

In other cases, a client 102 may request the content or object of apreviously requested URL. In one embodiment, the appliance 200intercepts the request of the client 102 and identifies the destinationIP address of the request. In some embodiments, the appliance 200forwards the request to the destination IP address. In otherembodiments, the appliance 200 identifies the URL of the request andforwards the request to the IP address for the URL stored in the cache232. In yet another embodiment, the appliance 200 updates the cachedinformation 1580 for the URL with the destination IP address of theintercepted packet. Based on the request, the appliance 200 may alsoperform any of the prefreshening techniques of the cached information1580 to update the IP address of the URL stored in the cache.

Although FIGS. 15A and 15B depict embodiments of systems having anappliance 200 practicing the DNS related techniques described herein,these techniques may be deployed on an end node such as via a client 102having the network optimization engine 250. In some embodiments, theclient 102 has a cache 232 for storing cached DNS information 1580. Inanother embodiment, the network optimization engine 250 and/or theclient agent 120 of the client 120 has logic, functions, and operationsfor responding to and processing DNS requests of the client 102 asdescribed herein.

Referring now to FIG. 15C, an embodiment of steps of a method 1500 forperforming domain name resolution for interception caching and applyingany of prefreshening and/or prefetching techniques to interceptingcaching and DNS cached information. In brief overview, at step 1505, adevice, such as appliance 200 intercepts a request for a URL. At step1510, the appliance 200 identifies from a packet of the request adestination IP address of the request. At step 1515, the appliance 200associates the identified destination IP address from the interceptedpacket with the URL of the request. For example, the appliance 200 mayconsider the destination IP address as the resolved DNS address of theURL. At step 1520, the appliance 200 intercepts a DNS request of theclient to resolve the DNS address of the URL or intercepts a request forthe URL from the server. At step 1525, in one embodiment, the appliance200 identifies the IP address stored in the cache 232 as the resolved IPaddress of the URL. At step 1530, in some embodiments, the appliance 200serves the identified IP address from the cache 232 as the resolved DNSaddress of the URL in response to the client's DNS request. In otherembodiments and in the case of a request for the URL, at step 1530′, theappliance 200 transmits the request for the URL to the server having theIP address identified in the cache 232 for the URL.

Embodiments of method 1500 may perform any of the fetching, prefetching,freshening or prefreshening techniques described herein to DNS cachedinformation and DNS requests. In one embodiment, at step 1535, theintercepting device may perform a parallel revalidation technique of theDNS cached information 1580 in accordance with the systems and methodsdescribed in conjunction with FIGS. 6A and 6B. In another embodiment, atstep 1540, the intercepting device performs a speculative QoSrequest/response technique for DNS information in accordance with thesystems and methods described in conjunction with FIGS. 7A-7D. In someembodiments, at step 1545, the intercepting device performs a stackoriented prefetching technique for DNS requests in accordance with thesystems and methods described in conjunction with FIGS. 8A and 8B. Inone embodiment, at step 1550, the intercepting device perform afreshening technique for DNS requests in accordance with the systems andmethods described in conjunction with FIGS. 9A and 9B. In someembodiments, at step 1555, the intercepting device performs a dynamicfreshness heuristic techniques for DNS cached information 1580 inaccordance with the systems and methods described in conjunction withFIGS. 13A and 13B. In yet another embodiment, at step 1560, theintercepting device performs cache expiration techniques for DNS cachedinformation 1580 responsive to refresh requests in accordance with thesystems and methods described in conjunction with FIGS. 14A and 14B.

In further details, at step 1505, the device, such as appliance 200,intercepts any type and form of communication from one device to anotherdevice, such as between a client and a server. In one embodiment, theappliance 200 intercepts a request from a client or a browser of aclient to open a transport layer connection with a server. In anotherembodiment, the appliance 200 intercepts a request for a URL from aserver. In some embodiments, the device intercepts a DNS request or arequest to resolve a domain name into an IP address.

At step 1510, the device identifies from a packet a destination IPaddress of the request. In one embodiment, the appliance 200 identifiesfrom a network or IP layer of the packet 1575 a destination IP addressof the request. In another embodiment, the appliance 200 identifies fromthe transport layer of the packet 1575 the destination IP address. Insome embodiments, the device intercepts a request to open a transportlayer connection and identifies a destination IP address from theconnection request. In yet another embodiment, the device identifiesfrom an application layer protocol of the packet 1575 or subsequentpackets 1575 a URL or domain name associated with the destination IPaddress. In some embodiment, the network optimization engine 250, orportion thereof, such as an HTTP accelerator 234, operates in user modeor at an application layer of the network stack and uses applicationprogramming interface (API) calls to obtain the destination IP addressedidentifies via lower layers of the network stack, such as the network ortransport layer.

At step 1515, the appliance 200 associates the identified destination IPaddress from the intercepted packet 1575 with a URL. In one embodiment,the appliance 200 does not perform any domain name resolution on theURL, but instead, uses the identified destination IP address from theintercepted packet 1575 as the resolved IP address of the URL. In someembodiments, the appliance 200 assigns the destination IP address as theresolved DNS address of the URL. In another embodiment, the appliance200 stores the identified destination IP address 1580 in the cache 232.In one embodiment, the appliance 200 stores the identified IP address inthe cache 232 in association with the URL. In some embodiments, theappliance 200 stores the identified IP address in the cache inassociation with a domain name, such as any domain name identified via aportion of the URL.

In some cases, the caching or interception device, such as appliance200, responds to DNS requests using the cached DNS information 1580. Atstep 1520, the appliance 200 intercepts a DNS request of the client toresolve the DNS address of the URL. In one embodiment, the appliance 200intercepts a request from a client to a server to resolve the domainname identified via the URL into an IP address. In some embodiments, theappliance 200 receives the request from the client to resolve a domainname of the URL into an IP address. For example, the client 102 orbrowser of the client 102 may be configured to use the appliance 200 asa proxy. In another example, the client 102 or browser of the client 102may be configured to use the appliance 200 as a DNS server or domainname service.

At step 1525, in one embodiment, the appliance 200 identifies the IPaddress stored in the cache 232 as the resolved IP address for the DNSrequest. In some embodiments, the appliance 200 identifies thedestination IP address determined at step 1510 and stored at step 1515as the resolved IP address for the domain name of the DNS request. Atstep 1530, in some embodiments, the appliance 200 serves the identifiedIP address from the cache 232 as the resolved DNS address of the URL inresponse to the client's DNS request. In one embodiment, the appliance200 transmits a response to the client's DNS request identifying thedestination IP address determined at step 1510.

In other cases, the caching or intercepting device, such as appliance200, processes requests for URLs from servers using the cached DNSinformation 1580. At step 1520, the appliance 200 intercepts a requestfor the URL from a server. In one embodiment, the appliance 200intercepts a request from a client to a server to obtain the content orobject identified via the URL. In one embodiment, the client 102transmits the request for the URL without resolving the domain nameidentified by the URL into an IP address. For example, in someembodiments, the appliance 200 intercepts the client's requesttransmitted to a proxy. In other embodiments, the appliance 200 acts asa proxy and receives the client's request. For example, the client 102or browser of the client 102 may be configured to use the appliance 200as a proxy. In yet another embodiment, the client 102 transmits therequest for the URL for which the client 102 has resolved the domainname identified by the URL into an IP address. For example, the client102 transmits the request for the URL via a transport layer connectionestablished with the destination IP address resolved by the client 102.In some of these embodiments, the appliance 200 intercepts the requestfor the URL via the transport layer connection for which the appliance200 is a proxy or otherwise proxies.

In other embodiments and in the case of a request for the URL, at step1530′, the appliance 200 transmits the request for the URL to the serverhaving the IP address identified in the cache 232 for the URL. At step1525, in one embodiment, the appliance 200 identifies the IP addressstored in the DNS information 1580 if the cache 232 as the resolved IPaddress for the URL request. In some embodiments, the appliance 200identifies the destination IP address determined at step 1510 and storedat step 1515 as the destination IP address for URL request. At step1530′, in some embodiments, the appliance 200 forwards the interceptedrequest to the IP address of the cached DNS information 1580. In oneembodiment, the appliance 200 forwards the intercepted URL request tothe destination IP address identified via a packet 1575 of the requestfor the URL.

In some embodiments, at step 1535 m the intercepting device, such asappliance 200 or client 102, performs a parallel revalidation techniqueof the DNS cached information 1580 in accordance with method 600 asdiscussed in conjunction with FIG. 6B. In these embodiments, theintercepting device responds to the DNS request with the IP address fromthe DNS cached information 1580, such as described in step 1530, andgenerates and transmits a request to update the DNS information in thecache 232. In one embodiment, the device generates and transmits arequest to a DNS server 106 to resolve a domain name. For example, thedomain name corresponds to a domain name of a URL for which the deviceserved the DNS information from the cache 232 at step 1530. In someembodiments, the device generates and transmits the DNS request toresolve the domain name to an IP address in parallel, concurrently,substantially parallel or concurrently, or otherwise, to serving the DNSinformation from the cache 232. The device receives a response to theDNS request and updates the DNS cached information 1580. In someembodiments, the IP address for the resolved domain name has changed,while, in other embodiments, the IP address for the resolved domain namehas not changed.

In other embodiments, at step 1540, the intercepting device, such asappliance 200 or client 102, performs a speculative request, such as aprefetch or prefresh, of the DNS cached information 1580 in accordancewith methods 700 and/or 750 as discussed in conjunction with FIGS. 7Band 7D. In these embodiments, the device intercepts a page transmittedto a client 102. The device identifies one or more URLs of the page andgenerates a DNS request to resolve the domain name identified via a URLinto an IP address. The device encodes the generated DNS request with aspeculative QoS priority and transmits the generated DNS requestaccording to this assigned priority. In this manner, the devicetransmits the speculative DNS requests and receives a response that doesnot contend with non-speculative requests. Upon receipt of the response,the device stores the IP address of the resolved domain name in thecache 232 to provide the cached DNS information 1580. If the deviceintercepts a client's request to resolve the domain name of theintercepted URL or the device intercepts a request for the URL, thedevice may use the cached DNS information 1580 in responding to orotherwise processing the request as described above.

In another embodiment, at step 1545, the intercepting device, such asappliance 200 or client 102, uses any of the stack oriented prefetchingtechniques described in conjunction with method 800 and FIG. 8B. Forexample, in some embodiments, the intercepting device intercepts one ormore pages identifying URLs and stores the pages onto a stack in a LIFOmanner. Upon determination to prefetch DNS information, the device popsthe last stored URL from the stack and generates a DNS request toresolve a domain identified by the page or a URL of the page. The devicetransmits the DNS request to any type and form of domain name resolutionservice, such as a DNS server 106. From the response, the device storesthe IP address of the resolved domain name in the cache 232 to providethe cached DNS information 1580. In one embodiment, the device generatesand transmits the DNS request using the stack-oriented technique ofmethod 800 with the speculative request and response techniques ofmethods 700 and/or 750.

In some embodiments, at step 1550, the intercepting device, such asappliance 200 or client 102, uses any of the freshening techniquesdescribed in conjunction with method 900 and FIG. 9B. For example, inone embodiment, the device intercepts pages communicated via the device,such as a page transmitted from a server to a client. The device parsesa URL of the page and determines that the IP address for a domain nameidentified by the URL is located in a cache 232. Prior to a userrequesting the identified URL from the page, the device generates arequest for a status or an update to the IP address of the domain namein the cache 232 and transmits the generated request to a domain nameservice, such as a DNS server 106. The device receives a response fromthe server indicating a status of the DNS information or providing asecond or new IP address for the domain name. Based on the response, thedevice validates or updates the DNS information 1580 stored in the cache232.

In one embodiment, at step 1555, the intercepting device, such asappliance 200 or client 102, uses any of the dynamic freshness heuristictechniques described in conjunction with method 1300 and FIG. 13B. Usingthese techniques, the device dynamically takes into account theoperational and performance conditions of the link (connection), cachingdevice and/or server to determine whether or not to check a status ofthe DNS information stored in the cache or to obtain updated DNSresolution information from a DNS service or server. For example, thedevice may intercept a DNS request or a request for URL. The devicedetects whether or not an operational condition of the connection orserver is within a predetermined threshold. In response to thedetection, the device determines whether or not to transmit a request tothe server to obtain a status or an updated copy of the DNS informationin the cache. If the detected operational condition or conditionsexceeds one or more predetermined thresholds, the device does notgenerate or transmit a request to obtain or update the DNS information.For example, instead the device may use the cached DNS information toservice client requests. If the detected operational condition orconditions is within a predetermined threshold or thresholds, the devicegenerates a request for the status or updated DNS information andtransmits the generated request to a DNS service, such as a server.Based on the received response, the device updates the DNS informationstored in the cache.

In yet another embodiment, at step 1560, the intercepting device, suchas appliance 200 or client 102, uses any of the cache expirationtechniques responsive to refresh requests as described in conjunctionwith method 1400 and FIG. 14B. For example, in some embodiments, aclient 102 generates a request to refresh or reload a page identifying aURL. The device stores in the cache DNS information corresponding to adomain name of the URL. The cached DNS information may have a firstcache expiration period. The device detects one or more requests torefresh the URL and responsive to the detection determines to establisha second expiration period for the cached DNS information. For example,based on user demand for a URL detected by the refresh requests, acaching device may shorten the expiration period of the DNS informationto increase the frequency of freshening the information in the cache. Insome embodiments, the caching device adjusts the expiration period ofthe cached DNS information responsive to the number of refresh requests,frequency of the refresh requests, and/or number of users, clients,servers or browsers sending and/or receiving refresh requests associatedwith the cached object.

Browser Implementation and Deployment

Any of the techniques, systems and methods described above may bedeployed in a browser or for a browser. In some embodiments, any portionof the network optimization engine 250 may be built into a browser. Forexample, in one embodiment, a browser may designed, constructed orconfigured to use any of the techniques described herein. In anotherembodiment, a browser is customized or implemented to include one or allof these techniques. In other embodiments, any portion of the networkoptimization engine 250 may be implemented as any type and form ofadd-in or component, such as an ActiveX control, to the browser. In someembodiments, any portion of the network optimization engine 250 may beimplemented or deployed as a script, such as a Visual Basic or Javascript. In other embodiments, any portion of the network optimizationengine may be provided or served to a browser as browser executableinstructions, such as via web pages or HTTP content.

In one embodiment, the browser implements, deploys, uses or provides amultiple tier cache as described in conjunction with FIGS. 4A-4F. Inanother embodiment, the browser implements, deploys, uses or providesany of the security and reliability proxying techniques described inconjunction with FIGS. 5A and 5B. In some embodiments, the browserimplements, deploys, uses or provides parallel revalidation techniquesof cached objects as described in conjunction with FIGS. 6A and 6B. Inother embodiments, the browser implements, deploys, uses or provides theQoS prefreshening and prefetching techniques for cached objects asdescribed in conjunction with FIGS. 7A-7D. In yet another embodiment,the browser implements, deploys, uses or provides a stack-orientedapproach to prefetching objects to cache as described in conjunctionwith FIGS. 8A and 8B. In one embodiment, the browser implements,deploys, uses or provides for prefreshening objects in a cache prior touser requests for the object as described in conjunction with FIGS.9A-9B. In other embodiments, the browser implements, deploys, uses orprovides for determining to prefetch an object by requesting headerinformation of the object from a server as described in conjunction withFIGS. 10A-10B. In another embodiment, the browser implements, deploys,uses or provides a technique for updating header information of theobject in the cache as described in FIG. 10C.

In yet another embodiment, the browser implements, deploys, uses orprovides techniques for using non-cacheable content as compressionhistory as described in conjunction with FIGS. 11A-11D. In someembodiments, the browser implements, deploys, uses or provides for usingnon-HTTP network file transfer as compression history as described inconjunction with FIGS. 12A-12B. In one embodiment, the browserimplements, deploys, uses or provides technique for determining whetherto prefetch/prefresh an object based on operational condition of thedevice or a status of the connection as described in conjunction withFIGS. 13A-13B. In other embodiments, the browser implements, deploys,uses or provides techniques for determining expiration of a cachedobject responsive to refresh requests for the object as described inconjunction with FIGS. 14A-14C. In yet another embodiment, the browserimplements, deploys, uses or provides techniques for interceptioncaching and updating of domain name resolution as described inconjunction with FIGS. 15A-15C.

1. A method for revalidating an object stored in cache while serving the object to a requester, the method comprising the steps of: (a) receiving a request for an object from a requester; (b) determining that the object exists in a cache; (c) transmitting, responsive to the determination, the cached object to the requester in response to the request; and (d) transmitting, responsive to the determination, a request to a remote object server to determine a status of the object.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein steps (c) and (d) occur substantially simultaneously.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein steps (c) and (d) occur in parallel.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein step (d) occurs prior to step (c).
 5. The method of claim 1, comprising transmitting the cached object to the requester prior to receiving a response from the remote object server.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein step (d) comprises transmitting to a remote object server, responsive to the determination, a conditional request to retrieve the object.
 7. The method of claim 6, comprising receiving a response to the conditional request indicating the object has not changed.
 8. The method of claim 6, comprising receiving an updated version of the object from the remote object server in response to the conditional request.
 9. The method of claim 8, comprising storing the updated version of the object in the local cache.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein step (a) comprises receiving, via a network, a request for an object from a requester.
 11. The method of claim 1, wherein step (b) comprises determining (i) that the object exists in the local cache and (ii) that a status identifier associated with the object indicates that the object is valid.
 12. The method of claim 1, wherein step (c) comprises transmitting via a network, responsive to the determination, the requested object from the cache to the requester.
 13. The method of claim 1, wherein step (d) comprises transmitting to the remote object server, responsive to the determination, a request to retrieve an updated version of the object.
 14. A system for revalidating an object stored in cache while serving the object to a requester, the system comprising: (a) a cache manager in communication with a requester, a remote object server and a local cache storing an object, the cache manager receiving a first request for the object from the requester; (b) wherein, in response to locating the object in the local cache, the cache manager transmits the object to the requester in response to the first request, and in response to locating the object in the local cache, transmits a second request to obtain a status of the object from the remote object server.
 15. The system of claim 14, wherein the cache manager comprises one of software or hardware.
 16. The system of claim 14, wherein the local cache comprises one of random access memory or disk storage.
 17. The system of claim 14, wherein the remote object server comprises a web server.
 18. The system of claim 14, wherein the cache manager communicates with the requester via a network.
 19. The system of claim 14, wherein the cache manager transmits the object to requester and transmits the second request to the remote object server substantially simultaneously.
 20. The system of claim 14, wherein the cache manager transmits the object to requester and transmits the second request to the remote object server in parallel.
 21. The system of claim 14, wherein the cache manager transmits the cached object to the requester prior to receiving a response from the remote object server.
 22. The system of claim 14, wherein the cache manager transmits to the remote object server, responsive to the determination, a conditional request to retrieve the object.
 23. The system of claim 22, wherein the cache manager receives a response to the conditional request indicating the object has not changed.
 24. The system of claim 22, wherein the cache manager receives an updated version of the object from the remote object server in response to the conditional request.
 25. The system of claim 22, wherein the cache manager stores the updated version of the object in the local cache.
 26. In a networked environment including a network appliance acting as a proxy between a client requesting objects and an object server responding to client requests, a method for revalidation objects cached by the appliance while also serving the objects to the client, the method comprising; (a) intercepting, by an appliance, a request from a client for an object from a remote object server; (b) determining, by the appliance, that the object exists in a cache of the appliance; (c) transmitting by the appliance, responsive to the determination, the cached object to the client in response to the request; and (d) transmitting by the appliance, responsive to the determination, a request to obtain a status of the object from the remote object server.
 27. The method of claim 26, wherein the appliance comprises a transparent proxy.
 28. The method of claim 26, wherein steps (c) and (d) occur substantially simultaneously.
 29. The method of claim 26, wherein steps (c) and (d) occur in parallel.
 30. The method of claim 26, wherein step (d) occurs prior to step (c).
 31. The method of claim 26, comprising transmitting, by the appliance, the cached object to the client prior to receiving a response from the remote object server.
 32. The method of claim 26, wherein step (d) comprises transmitting, by the appliance, a remote object server, responsive to the determination, a conditional request to retrieve the object.
 33. The method of claim 32, comprising receiving, by the appliance, a response to the conditional request indicating the object has not changed.
 34. The method of claim 33, comprising receiving, by the appliance, an updated version of the object.
 35. The method of claim 34, comprising storing, by the appliance, the updated version of the object in the cache.
 36. The method of claim 32, wherein step (b) comprises determining, by the appliance, (i) that the object exists in a local cache element and (ii) that a status identifier associated with the object indicates that the object is valid.
 37. In a networked environment including a network appliance acting as a proxy between a client requesting objects and an object server responding to client requests, an appliance revalidating objects cached by the appliance while also serving the objects to the client, the appliance comprising: (a) a packet processing engine intercepting a first request from a client for an object from a server; (b) a cache manager in communication with the packet processing engine, the cache manager determining the object is stored in a cache of the appliance responsive to the packet processing engine; (c) wherein, in response to locating the object in the cache, the appliance transmits the object to the client in response to the first request, and in response to locating the object in the cache, transmits a second request to the server to obtain a status of the object.
 38. The appliance of claim 37, wherein the cache manager comprises one of software or hardware.
 39. The appliance of claim 37, wherein the cache comprises one of random access memory or disk storage.
 40. The appliance of claim 37, wherein the appliance transmits the object to the client and transmits the second request to the server substantially simultaneously.
 41. The appliance of claim 37, wherein the appliance transmits the object to the client and transmits the second request to the server in parallel.
 42. The appliance of claim 37, wherein the appliance transmits the cached object to the client prior to receiving a response to the second request from the server.
 43. The appliance of claim 37, wherein the appliance transmits to the server, responsive to the determination, a conditional request to retrieve the object.
 44. The appliance of claim 37, wherein the appliance receives a response to the conditional request indicating the object has not changed.
 45. The appliance of claim 44, wherein the cache manager receives an updated version of the object from the server in response to the conditional request.
 46. The appliance of claim 44, wherein the cache manager stores the updated version of the object in the local cache. 